Incubator & Accelerator

Start-ups often face particular challenges and typical bottlenecks (e.g. lack of specific skills, resources and administrative support, weak business networks). Business incubators and accelerators support entrepreneurs to overcome these challenges by providing targeted resources and services such as trainings for personal and business development, funding opportunities, working space, mentorships and consulting. Particularly scaling up the startup is a delicate and risky endeavor with challenges that often can only be mastered by highly professional support of well-developed accelerators. Obviously startups need a beneficial business environment which allows them to develop and grow. These efforts result in a start-up survival rates 40%-50% higher than the survival rate without the help of incubators and accelerators. As for their external economic impact, business incubators’ and accelerators’ contribution comprises the promotion of local job creation through the support of start-up survival, technology transfer or economic development by supporting the creation of innovative products and services.

At Lemex, we research on the challenges and opportunities business incubators and accelerators face target solutions meeting those challenges best. We also try to specify the mechanisms that work in incubator and accelerator structures.

Contributions to this topic:

• Freiling, J., Marquardt, L., & Reit, T. (2022). Virtual Business Incubators: A Support for Entrepreneurship in Rural Areas? In Diginomics Research Perspectives (pp. 65–88). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04063-4_4

• Jürgens, C., Ramalingam, A., Zarembski, R., Harima, A. and Yeshi, T. (2022), "Relational Dynamics within Refugee Business Incubators: Bridging Refugee Entrepreneurs to the Host-Country Entrepreneurial Ecosystem", Pickernell, D.G., Battisti, M., Dann, Z. and Ekinsmyth, C. (Ed.) Disadvantaged Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research, Vol. 14), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 147-169.