Graduation Year
Spring 2013
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Economics
Reader 1
Janet Smith
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2013 Cody Chang
Abstract
The explosive growth of ‘accelerators’ in the United States has given entrepreneurs and their startups the opportunity to pursue seed-stage financing. While the specific economic role of accelerators remains unclear, a study comparing the selection of portfolio companies between accelerators and venture capitalists was performed. A difference of means was performed on the responses per question between the collected 19 accelerators’ response and the 100 venture capitalists’ response, recorded from a prior study. It is found that venture capitalists place significantly more weight, than accelerators, on the potential of the startup’s product or service to be proprietary, to enter a high-growth market with little threat of competition within the first 3 years, and to deliver a high financial return within 5 to 10 years. The results also indicate that both accelerators and venture capitalists emphasize different attributes of the entrepreneur and venture team when considering selection.
Recommended Citation
Chang, Cody, "Portfolio Company Selection Criteria: Accelerators vs Venture Capitalists" (2013). CMC Senior Theses. 566.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/566
Included in
Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons, Other Economics Commons, Portfolio and Security Analysis Commons
