A corporate accelerator is a specific form of

seed accelerator Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. While traditional business incubators are often g ...

which is sponsored by an established for-profit corporation. Similar to seed accelerators they support early-stage

startup companies A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

through

mentorship Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...

and often capital and office space. In contrast to regular programs, though, corporate accelerators derive their objectives from the sponsoring organization. These objectives can include the wish to stay close to emerging trends or to establish a funnel for corporate

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

investments. According t
Corporate Accelerator DB
there are 70+ such programs in existence as of December 2016. Notable companies include

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Citrix Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational cloud computing and virtualization technology company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologi ...

, and

Telefónica Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadba ...

who were among the first companies to offer such programs in the early 2010s. More recently, corporate accelerators have faced criticism as they might be less effective as regular seed accelerators. For example, the startup could be too focused on solving the problems of the sponsoring firm rather than finding external customers. Corporate accelerators differ from

Business incubators Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture ca ...

, which usually have a continuous intake, due to their fixed-term, cohort-based organization (similar to seed accelerators) and are distinct to

corporate venture capital Corporate venture capital (CVC) is the investment of corporate funds directly in external startup companies.Chesbrough, Henry''Making Sense of Corporate Venture Capital''. Harvard Business Review, 2002. CVC is defined by the Business Dictionary as ...

which is a direct, targeted investment.

References

{{reflist Business incubators Corporate development Business terms Cor

See also

References