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 Idealab (formerly known as idealab!) is a startup studio based in Pasadena, California, U.S.A. History Idealab was founded by Bill T. Gross (not to be confused with the founder of PIMCO, Bill H. Gross) in March 1996. Prior to Idealab, Gross fou ...

, 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 Pioneer Square Labs (PSL) is an American startup studio and Venture capital, venture capital fund, founded in 2015 and is based in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington. PSL develops and tests new business ideas and creates new companies out of ...

, Rocket Internet, and

eFounders eFounders is a startup studio that designs, builds, and launches startups. It was founded in France and Belgium in 2011 by Thibaud Elziere and Quentin Nickmans. All startup ideas originate with the team, who then present to entrepreneurs and invit ...

. 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, 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 Bottle ...

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 and Science, Inc. fall in this category.

References

{{Portal, Business Entrepreneurship organizations

History

Types

"Builder" studios

"Investor" studios

See also

References