A corporate accelerator is a specific form of seed accelerator 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 Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses 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 start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

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 corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

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 technologies. C ...

, and

Telefónica Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is List of telephone operating companies, one of the largest telephone operators and List of mobile network ...

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, 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 which is a direct, targeted investment.

References

{{reflist Business incubators Corporate development Business terms Cor

See also

References