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 includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. During the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential, such as unicorns.
A 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 capital financing. The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) defines business incubators as a catalyst tool for either regional or national economic development. NBIA categorizes its members' incubators by the following five incubator types: academic institutions; non-profit development corporations; for-profit property development ventures; venture capital firms, and a combination of the above.
Silicon Wadi is a region in Israel that serves as one of the global centres for advanced technology. It spans the Israeli coastal plain, and is cited as among the reasons why the country has become known as the world's "start-up nation". The highest concentrations of high-tech industry in the region can be found around Tel Aviv, including small clusters around the cities of Raʽanana, Petah Tikva, Herzliya, Netanya, Rehovot, and Ness Ziona. Additional clusters of high-tech industry can be found in Haifa and Caesarea. More recent high-tech establishments have been raised in cities such as Jerusalem and Beersheba, in towns such as Yokneam Illit, and in Airport City. Israel has the third highest number of startups by region and the highest rate of startups per capita in the world.
Vivek Wadhwa is an Indian-American technology entrepreneur and academic. He is Distinguished Fellow & Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley and Distinguished Fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. He is also author of books Your Happiness Was Hacked: Why Tech Is Winning the Battle to Control Your Brain—and How to Fight Back, Driver in the Driverless Car,Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology, and Immigrant Exodus.
East London Tech City is a technology cluster of high-tech companies located in East London, United Kingdom. Its main area lies broadly between St Luke's and Hackney Road, with an accelerator space for spinout companies at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components, and (sometimes) culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. While traditional business incubators are often government-funded, generally take no equity, and rarely provide funding, accelerators can be either privately or publicly funded and cover a wide range of industries. Unlike business incubators, the application process for seed accelerators is open to anyone, but is highly competitive. There are specific accelerators, such as corporate accelerators, which are often subsidiaries or programs of larger corporations that act like seed accelerators.
AngelList is an American software company for fundraising and connecting startups, angel investors, and limited partners. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge. Created by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.
A startup ecosystem is formed by people in startups in their various stages, and various types of organizations in a location that are interacting as a system to create and scale new startup companies. These organizations can be further divided into categories such as universities, funding organizations, support organizations, research organizations, service provider organizations and large corporations. Local Governments and Government organizations such as Commerce / Industry / Economic Development departments also play an important role in a startup ecosystem. Different organizations typically focus on specific parts of the ecosystem function and startups at their specific development stage(s).
SOSV is a venture capital firm that provides pre-seed, seed, Series A and later stage funding to deep tech startups that join its startup development programs, which are located in New York City, Newark, New Jersey, and San Francisco. SOSV was founded in 1995 by Sean O'Sullivan. It is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, with additional offices in Cork, Pune, Shenzhen and Tokyo.
Adam Jay Harrison is an American defense industry entrepreneur, inventor, and advocate for military acquisition reform. He works as a startup founder and investor and is the John R. Boyd National Security Innovation Fellow at New York University, where he researches the efficacy of national innovation policies that capitalize on collaboration between the public and private sectors. In 2006 Harrison founded Mav6, a defense technology company recognized by Inc. magazine in 2011, 2012, and 2013 as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in America. From 2016 to 2017 he served as the inaugural director of the MD5 National Security Technology Accelerator, a human capital innovation program within the Office of the Secretary of Defense and part of the Defense Innovation Unit. And from 2018 to 2019 he was the Command Innovation Officer of the US Army Futures Command, where he designed and implemented the organization's efforts to collaborate with the civilian high-tech sector in the development of advanced, military-relevant capabilities.
The Alchemist Accelerator is a venture-backed accelerator focused on the development of seed-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises. Alchemist's backers include Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Cisco, Siemens, GE, and Salesforce, among others. The accelerator seeds around 75 enterprise-monetizing ventures per year.
TiE Silicon Valley is the largest and founding chapter of the TiE brand, a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship. The chapter provides technology entrepreneurs with mentoring services, networking opportunities, startup-related education, funding, and incubating.
Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), formerly known as Technopark TBI, is a state-level agency under the Government of Kerala, India, dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship and incubation activities. Established primarily to manage the Technology Business Incubator (TBI), a startup accelerator, KSUM aims to cultivate a conducive environment for high-technology-based businesses.
PT Gojek Indonesia is an Indonesian on-demand multi-service platform and digital payment technology group based in Jakarta. Gojek was first established in Indonesia in 2009 as a call center to connect consumers to courier delivery and two-wheeled ride-hailing services. Gojek launched its application in 2015 with only four services: GoRide, GoSend, GoShop, and GoFood. Valued at US$10 billion today, Gojek has transformed into a super app, providing more than 20 services.
Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata Jnr. also known as CFA is a Nigerian journalist and a former television presenter at Channels TV. He is into digital marketing and known as a technology entrepreneur with focus on business coaching and public speaking. He hosted the first virtual telehealth conference of Nigeria’s telemedicine company, CareClick with the theme ‘The Future Of Healthcare Today’ on 24 September 2020. He was involved in various ICT-related companies that contributed to the development of the Founder Institute. He is known as the founder of Pacer Venture and has links with Climate Action Africa. He is the MD/CEO of Anambra State ICT Agency.
Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator is an American seed accelerator launched in January 2011.
Gaza Sky Geeks (GSG), previously known as the Arab Developer Network Initiative, is the first and only tech hub and startup accelerator in Gaza in Palestine. It was founded in 2011 with the backing of the global humanitarian organization Mercy Corps and Google, after Google executives, led by then Google.org and Google[X] head Megan Smith, visited Gaza. GSG has since then been supported by other Silicon Valley companies, such as Microsoft, and by international donors such as the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
CIIE.CO is an Indian startup accelerator and incubator that supports early-stage startups located at IIM Ahmedabad in Ahmedabad, India. It was founded in 2002 to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in India. It is a Center of excellence set up at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad with support from the Government of India's Department of Science and Technology and the Government of Gujarat.
AlphaLab is an American technology startup accelerator based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 2008 by Jim Jen. AlphaLab has two subsidiaries, AlphaLab Gear and AlphaLab Health, catering to companies in the hardware and medical fields, respectively.
Spoken is a mobile application and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tool launched in 2019. The app was designed to aid individuals with speech and language impairments like aphasia or nonverbal autism, using a combination of symbols, text, and voice output.
