Accelerators Can’t Be Rung Zero of the Venture Capital Ladder

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15 points·antr··5 comments

Money quote: Here’s what we’ve really got to confront: Venture Capital is INELASTIC. No matter how awesome and investable accelerators help these new startups to be, venture capital doesn’t have room for all of them.

While this may be true, I don't think this implies the premise of the title. Yes, not all of those startups will make it to 'proper' VC, but I think they produce information that can means those that DO make it are better-chosen.

From a VC point of view, I imagine that knowing what a potential funding target has done with their $20k accelerator funding is very valuable, and will lead to wiser investments.

Agreed. I interpreted the title and article to mean that accelerators cannot be rung zero of ONLY the venture capital ladder, which seems to be a perception trend. The article doesn't imply that what accelerators do isn't valuable for venture capitalists. It definitely is. Just that accelerators are for accelerating startups, many of whom will take funding paths other than VC.

Great point. I think all accelerators start out that way but now raising money from venture capitalists is the marker of success and I think is missing the whole point of accelerating. It also turns start ups off that could benefit from accelerators that don't wont to raise money from VC.

Fair point. I probably should have made the title "Accelerators Can't Only Be Rung Zero of the Venture Capital Ladder". Accelerators definitely create higher fidelity information for a VC on startups, especially for those that engage pre-demo day. I'm more interested in solving for increasing options for startups that are investment grade, but not VC scale.

or "Accelerators Can't Just Be a Rung on the Venture Capital Ladder"

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