14 ms·

List of Seed Accelerator Programs and their results

71 points by robg 14y ago

rdl 14y ago
The median $ seems incorrect -- for Y Combinator, it seems to be the investment just from YC, and for other programs, it seems to be their entire raise from all sources. I believe most YC companies raise external capital on top of YC; there has been START and YC VC from $80k to $150k, and according to pg, a most YC companies that need to raise capital have been successful doing so (at least for the past few years).
- pg 14y ago
  Yes, it's way off. It's based on Crunchbase, which is very incomplete about funding unless investors make a deliberate effort to log rounds there. The actual median up to w2012 seems to be 850k. (We don't have fundraising data from the summer batch in our system yet.)
  - jedc 14y ago
    (Seed-DB founder here) Exactly; where the majority of startups in an accelerator don't have funding data in Crunchbase, it defaults to the funding that startups get from the accelerator itself. (This is why the list of accelerators defaults to sorting by average funding versus median funding.) There were a few different ways I could have calculated median funding. The first is just looking at the values of startups with funding data, but this would have only identified the median funding of the "winners" of a program and thus isn't as valuable. So I calculate median by using funding data from Crunchbase for each startup, and where there's none I use the original funding from the accelerators. If anyone has any questions, comments or feedback, my e-mail is plastered all over the site. (jed.christiansen@seed-db.com)
    - rdl 14y ago
      Personally, I would just list the funding provided automatically to each company (complicated in the case of YC since it varies with team size). I'd almost exclude the START and YC VC notes from YC, as they're not mandatory. A more useful stat is "able to raise follow on funding" or "still in business after a year", I think.
      - jedc 14y ago
        I'm not sure what you're looking for here. I import each company's funding data from Crunchbase, whether that's a convertible note or an equity round. My comment above was just regarding the algorithm for calculating median funding. I've been thinking about ways to figure out if a company is still in business, and will be implementing them over the next few months. (This is still a nights/weekends project for me.) One of the easiest ways is just to display a company's twitter/blog feeds on their Seed-DB entry. If they haven't been updated in a long time, that implies they're no longer in business.
seats 14y ago
last time around http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4291075 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4291075
- rdl 14y ago
  Is it still accurate for TechStars Cloud? (I'm intrigued by the concept of thematic incubators. Particularly, what happens if you pick a theme that either eats the world (cloud) or dies (TechStars Flash would not be something I'd invest in right now...)
  - kevinpfab 14y ago
    Yes, the numbers for TechStars Cloud are accurate. If you're interested in learning more about the themed program, feel free to contact me and I'll answer any questions you have! Source: I was a founder in TSC's first class.
- mikegirouard 14y ago
  I knew I had seen this before...
subrat_rout 14y ago
I can't find Founder Institute.
- jedc 14y ago
  I have a pretty strict definition of what constitutes a "seed accelerator": http://www.seed-db.com/about/view?page=definition http://www.seed-db.com/about/view?page=definition Since Founder Institute charges startups to be a part of the program, it's not included.
aneth4 14y ago
Most pertinent observation: there isn't much money in startups. The odds truly are horrendous. Even from YC, the average exit is only $2M. From other accelerators, the total of all exists is well below what most founders want for their own exit. This might explain why companies are so quick to jump on $10M aquihire deals. Conclusion? If you want financial gain from a startup, go for sustainable revenue and building a real profitable business. Or get into YC and be one of their more successful bets. Granted, there may be a lot more exits in the future from some of these accelerators, but it's doubtful that will change the averages by any order of magnitude. Perhaps we should ask ourselves, why do these investors stick around?
- dmk23 14y ago
  Nice to see that this independent report confirms what I've posited earlier in "You Can Go It Alone" thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4799752 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4799752
- acgourley 14y ago
  Your conclusion doesn't follow unless you have a chart showing the average outcomes there are better. There are a lot of smart people betting their own money that you're wrong, after all.
- pg 14y ago
  I'm not sure why you think the average exit is $2 million. Are you getting that from the column titled "Average $?" If you mouse over that title, you'll see it refers to the average amount raised.
  - bkanber 14y ago
    He may be getting that figure from the $950M "$ Exits" figure divided by 450 companies -- but that's incorrect as not all 450 companies have had exits. I'd imagine that probably 45 companies have had exits, making the avg exit value around $20M, which sounds pretty realistic to me.
    - 14y ago
acgourley 14y ago
I just wanted to point out many of those programs are < 4 years old and four years after YC's founding nearly everyone was skeptical of them. It just takes a while to a) get a few winners b) get a market value on them. If the powerlaw of startup outcomes is accurate, nearly all of these programs are too young and too small to have telling data.
jedc 14y ago
Seed-DB founder here. I've recently added a feature where I grant permission for users to enter/edit information on their accelerator and their accelerator startups to Seed-DB. It's a manual process, and I only give this permission to accelerator program founders or administrators. But if that's you, please get in touch. (jed.christiansen@seed-db.com) Otherwise, if you sign up for the newsletter (http://www.seed-db.com/about/view?page=newsletter http://www.seed-db.com/about/view?page=newsletter <- very low traffic) you'll hear about all the new stuff first.
fidanov 14y ago
Funny table, but does not showing anything about the success of those businesses or the VCes. As far as this table shows, each of these companies may have been a total failure, which I am sure is not true. There should be columns like "profits", "revenue", "median profits", "number of profitable companies". Such type of columns will show how successful are both the companies and the accelerators. Also the "average lifespan" and "number of companies still operating" could be other interesting metrics that provide an insight on how sustainable are those companies.
- jedc 14y ago
  Founder of Seed-DB here. I'd love to get numbers on revenue, profits, etc. but it's essentially impossible to do this for private companies. Even average lifespan is difficult because death is often not a single day, but a slow transition.
  - fidanov 14y ago
    You are right. Its hard + I suppose some VC companies will try to prevent revealing such data, as it will not show them in the best possible light.

71 points by robg 14y ago

rdl 14y ago

The median $ seems incorrect -- for Y Combinator, it seems to be the investment just from YC, and for other programs, it seems to be their entire raise from all sources. I believe most YC companies raise external capital on top of YC; there has been START and YC VC from $80k to $150k, and according to pg, a most YC companies that need to raise capital have been successful doing so (at least for the past few years).

pg 14y ago
Yes, it's way off. It's based on Crunchbase, which is very incomplete about funding unless investors make a deliberate effort to log rounds there. The actual median up to w2012 seems to be 850k. (We don't have fundraising data from the summer batch in our system yet.)
- jedc 14y ago
  (Seed-DB founder here) Exactly; where the majority of startups in an accelerator don't have funding data in Crunchbase, it defaults to the funding that startups get from the accelerator itself. (This is why the list of accelerators defaults to sorting by average funding versus median funding.) There were a few different ways I could have calculated median funding. The first is just looking at the values of startups with funding data, but this would have only identified the median funding of the "winners" of a program and thus isn't as valuable. So I calculate median by using funding data from Crunchbase for each startup, and where there's none I use the original funding from the accelerators. If anyone has any questions, comments or feedback, my e-mail is plastered all over the site. (jed.christiansen@seed-db.com)
  - rdl 14y ago
    Personally, I would just list the funding provided automatically to each company (complicated in the case of YC since it varies with team size). I'd almost exclude the START and YC VC notes from YC, as they're not mandatory. A more useful stat is "able to raise follow on funding" or "still in business after a year", I think.
    - jedc 14y ago
      I'm not sure what you're looking for here. I import each company's funding data from Crunchbase, whether that's a convertible note or an equity round. My comment above was just regarding the algorithm for calculating median funding. I've been thinking about ways to figure out if a company is still in business, and will be implementing them over the next few months. (This is still a nights/weekends project for me.) One of the easiest ways is just to display a company's twitter/blog feeds on their Seed-DB entry. If they haven't been updated in a long time, that implies they're no longer in business.

seats 14y ago

last time around http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4291075 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4291075

rdl 14y ago
Is it still accurate for TechStars Cloud? (I'm intrigued by the concept of thematic incubators. Particularly, what happens if you pick a theme that either eats the world (cloud) or dies (TechStars Flash would not be something I'd invest in right now...)
- kevinpfab 14y ago
  Yes, the numbers for TechStars Cloud are accurate. If you're interested in learning more about the themed program, feel free to contact me and I'll answer any questions you have! Source: I was a founder in TSC's first class.
mikegirouard 14y ago
I knew I had seen this before...

subrat_rout 14y ago

I can't find Founder Institute.

jedc 14y ago
I have a pretty strict definition of what constitutes a "seed accelerator": http://www.seed-db.com/about/view?page=definition http://www.seed-db.com/about/view?page=definition Since Founder Institute charges startups to be a part of the program, it's not included.

aneth4 14y ago

Most pertinent observation: there isn't much money in startups. The odds truly are horrendous. Even from YC, the average exit is only $2M. From other accelerators, the total of all exists is well below what most founders want for their own exit. This might explain why companies are so quick to jump on $10M aquihire deals. Conclusion? If you want financial gain from a startup, go for sustainable revenue and building a real profitable business. Or get into YC and be one of their more successful bets. Granted, there may be a lot more exits in the future from some of these accelerators, but it's doubtful that will change the averages by any order of magnitude. Perhaps we should ask ourselves, why do these investors stick around?

dmk23 14y ago
Nice to see that this independent report confirms what I've posited earlier in "You Can Go It Alone" thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4799752 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4799752
acgourley 14y ago
Your conclusion doesn't follow unless you have a chart showing the average outcomes there are better. There are a lot of smart people betting their own money that you're wrong, after all.
pg 14y ago
I'm not sure why you think the average exit is $2 million. Are you getting that from the column titled "Average $?" If you mouse over that title, you'll see it refers to the average amount raised.
- bkanber 14y ago
  He may be getting that figure from the $950M "$ Exits" figure divided by 450 companies -- but that's incorrect as not all 450 companies have had exits. I'd imagine that probably 45 companies have had exits, making the avg exit value around $20M, which sounds pretty realistic to me.
  - 14y ago

acgourley 14y ago

I just wanted to point out many of those programs are < 4 years old and four years after YC's founding nearly everyone was skeptical of them. It just takes a while to a) get a few winners b) get a market value on them. If the powerlaw of startup outcomes is accurate, nearly all of these programs are too young and too small to have telling data.

jedc 14y ago

Seed-DB founder here. I've recently added a feature where I grant permission for users to enter/edit information on their accelerator and their accelerator startups to Seed-DB. It's a manual process, and I only give this permission to accelerator program founders or administrators. But if that's you, please get in touch. (jed.christiansen@seed-db.com) Otherwise, if you sign up for the newsletter (http://www.seed-db.com/about/view?page=newsletter http://www.seed-db.com/about/view?page=newsletter <- very low traffic) you'll hear about all the new stuff first.

fidanov 14y ago

Funny table, but does not showing anything about the success of those businesses or the VCes. As far as this table shows, each of these companies may have been a total failure, which I am sure is not true. There should be columns like "profits", "revenue", "median profits", "number of profitable companies". Such type of columns will show how successful are both the companies and the accelerators. Also the "average lifespan" and "number of companies still operating" could be other interesting metrics that provide an insight on how sustainable are those companies.

jedc 14y ago
Founder of Seed-DB here. I'd love to get numbers on revenue, profits, etc. but it's essentially impossible to do this for private companies. Even average lifespan is difficult because death is often not a single day, but a slow transition.
- fidanov 14y ago
  You are right. Its hard + I suppose some VC companies will try to prevent revealing such data, as it will not show them in the best possible light.