A startup studio, also known as a startup factory, or a startup foundry, or a venture studio, is a studio-like company that aims at building several companies in succession. This style of business building is referred to as "parallel entrepreneurship".
History
Idealab, founded by
Bill Gross in 1996, was one of the first to introduce the '
incubator industry' to the field of technology startups, and has started over 75 companies. Idealab was founded to test many ideas at once and turn the best of them into companies while also attracting the human and financial capital necessary to bring them to the market.
The startup studio trend gained momentum beginning in 2008. As of 2015, there were over 65 startup studios across the world, of which 17 had been built since 2013.
Types
There are several types of startup studio models.
"Builder" studios
A builder startup studio focuses on creating and developing a company, mostly from internal ideas.
[
] Notable examples of this model are Atomic,
Pioneer Square Labs,
Rocket Internet
Rocket Internet SE is a German Internet company headquartered in Berlin. The company builds startups and owns shareholdings in various models of internet retail businesses. The company model is known as a startup studio or a venture builder.
It ...
, and
eFounders.
Unlike
business incubator
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 c ...
s and
accelerators
Accelerator may refer to:
In science and technology
In computing
*Download accelerator, or download manager, software dedicated to downloading
*Hardware acceleration, the use of dedicated hardware to perform functions faster than a CPU
** Gr ...
, venture builders generally don't accept applications concerning their portfolio of companies, and the companies instead "pull business ideas from within their own network of resources and assign internal teams to develop them."
According to
VentureBeat
''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. It publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos.
History
The ''VentureBeat'' company was founded in 2006 by Matt Marshall, ...
,
Nova Spivack
Nova Spivack is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author. He is the founder and CEO of the early stage science and technology incubator Magical and co-founder of The Arch Mission Foundation.
Spivack previously co-founded Bottlen ...
was "part of the early technologists who pioneered the venture production studio model. He wrote about the model in 2011 at a time when most of its production elements were still in gestation. Nova actually invented the Venture Production Studio term, calling it a 'new approach to building startups.'"
"Investor" studios
Investor venture studios bring in early-stage external startups and help them grow by providing them both funds and expertise. Studios
Betaworks
Betaworks is an American startup studio and seed stage venture capital company based in New York City that invests in network-focused, consumer-facing media businesses.
Its hybrid investor/builder model has led to both investments in fast-grow ...
and
Science, Inc. fall in this category.
See also
*
Business incubator
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 c ...
*
Founder
*
Startup company
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 ...
*
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
*
List of venture capital firms
*
Angel investor
References
{{Portal, Business
Entrepreneurship organizations