Facilitate Success for Others or up the Stakes and Claim it Yourself - Accelerators in Startup Finance

Sammanfattning: This paper is an exploratory study based on 30 qualitative interviews that outlines the selection and financing patterns of accelerators. It identifies the key criteria evaluated in the selection process of accelerators as the team, idea and program fit in this order. Furthermore, the thesis outlines the basics of how accelerators finance startups, handle information asymmetry and perform the valuation. A five-staged categorization of financing sophistication of accelerators is proposed. Moreover, the thesis confirms the existence of a funding gap after the portfolio companies leave the accelerator, which causes a trend towards increased and later-staged investments by accelerators in their portfolio companies.