Do you know your accelerators from your incubators? Even heard of a (business) catapult? Attended a hackathon? The world of intensive business support can be a little tricky to navigate, and to make it more difficult, some organisations mean one term when then mean something else. Here is our quick guide to some of the types of support out there. This week we are looking at Incubator Programmes

 

 

Incubator Programmes

Incubators can be hard to distinguish from accelerators. One key difference is that incubators nearly always have a physical location, and you and your business will be based there for all, or part of the programme.

Often incubators are investment led; meaning that they’ll focus on activity which makes it possible/likely that you’ll be able to attract external investors, so for example you may do practice pitches throughout.

The amount of time you spend in an incubator is tending to reduce – some are now as short as 6 or 8 months, and almost all will be for less than a year.

Some incubators will take a share of equity in your company in exchange for the programme, this is a big decision for you to make, and also may exclude you if you organisation isn’t structured as a share-held organisation. There are exceptions to all these “rules” though- for example the WAYRA-UNLTD incubator is focussed on socially focussed ventures, and not all of these are share held.

The term incubator has come into fashion recently, so you’ll find it applied to a wide range of business support which doesn’t fit the traditional model. It’s also worth noting that the term incubator has different norms in different countries, so it’s always worth asking lots of questions before making a decision; we hope that this blog can help shape some of the questions you ask.

 

Blog by Isla…