Startup studio

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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 startup companies in succession. This style of business building is referred to as "parallel entrepreneurship". [1]

Contents

Unlike business incubators and accelerators, venture builders generally don't accept applications, and the companies instead pull business ideas from within the team itself, or their close network, and assign internal teams to develop them. [2] Some startup studios also act as early stage venture capitalists.

History

Idealab, 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. [3] 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. [4] [5]

In the wake of the tech revolution in the early 2000s, the startup studio sector experienced a surge in growth. This led to the emergence of several studios, which modeled themselves after Idealab, seeking to demonstrate the efficacy of their successful model. During this era of technological advancements, leading studios like Rocket and Betaworks established themselves as independent entities by launching scalable businesses to meet the growing demand and adapt to the changing landscape. [6]

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. [7] As of 2022 there are more than 780 startup studios across the globe. [8]


During the 2020s, there has been a notable surge and increasing traction in the Startup Studio framework. This trend is bolstered by expanding communities and networks dedicated to disseminating knowledge about Startup Studios, aiding in their establishment, expansion, and acceleration. Notably, StudioHub stands out as the preeminent global network of Startup Studios and venture builders. Headquartered in Italy, this network provides an extensive array of publicly accessible resources and also offers annual memberships aimed at fostering the development of Startup Studios on a global scale.

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. [2] Notable examples of this model are Atomic, [9] [10] Pioneer Square Labs, [11] Rocket Internet, and eFounders. [12]

According to VentureBeat, Nova Spivack 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. According to VentureBeat, Nova actually invented the Venture Production Studio term, calling it a 'new approach to building startups.'" [2]

According to Duodeka, venture builders have several advantages over traditional startups: (1) higher success and return ratios, (2) recurring experience captured in playbooks, (3) Access to talent, (4) Flexible skills deployment, (5) Faster market entry and exits, (6) Access to manuals, resources and processes and (7) Entire team ready to hit the ground running. [13]

"Investor" studios

Investor venture studios bring in external startups in their idea stage, help them grow by providing them both Venture capital financing, expertise and team building. Studios include Betaworks, Colab (Venture Studio), and Science, Inc. fall in this category.[ citation needed ]

Countries with presence of Venture Studios

See also

Related Research Articles

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An angel investor is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early stage, once or in a consecutive manner, and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital and provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Techstars</span> U.S. startup accelerator

Techstars is a pre-seed investor that provides access to capital, mentorship, and other support for early-stage entrepreneurs. It was founded in 2006 in Boulder, Colorado. As of January 2024, the company had accepted over 4,100 companies into its accelerator programs with a combined market capitalization of $106bn USD. Techstars operates accelerator programs in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

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.

Women 2.0 is a global network and social platform for aspiring and current female founders of technology ventures. It was founded in April 2006 and primarily provides an incubator for ideas program for engineers, designers, business, and marketing participants who want to launch and develop their own high-technology ventures.

iHub is an Innovation hub and hacker space for the technology community in Nairobi. It was started in March 2010 by Erik Hersman, a blogger, TED fellow, and entrepreneur and acquired by Co-creation Hub (CcHUB) in 2019. This coworking space, in Senteu Plaza at the junction of Lenana and Galana Roads, is a nexus for technologists, investors, young entrepreneurs, designers, researchers and programmers.

Betaworks is an American startup studio and seed stage venture capital company based in New York City that invests in network-focused media businesses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Startup ecosystem</span> Type of business ecosystem

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).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adeo Ressi</span> American entrepreneur and investor

Adeo Ressi is the founder and CEO of Decile Group and Executive Chairman of Founder Institute. Decile Group is a full-stack venture capital platform for emerging managers worldwide and helped launch nearly 50% of all VC firms in 2023 with the VC Lab accelerator. Founder Institute, a pre-seed accelerator, operates chapters in over 250 cities and supports more than 7,000 portfolio companies. Ressi’s previous startups, including Methodfive, Game Trust, and Total New York, resulted in nearly $2 billion in exits by the age of 30. He has also launched 14 venture capital funds, served on the board of the X Prize Foundation, and created TheFunded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Founder Institute</span>

The Founder Institute is an American business incubator, entrepreneur training and startup launch program that was founded in Palo Alto, California in 2009. Although based in Silicon Valley, The Founder Institute maintains chapters in over 180 cities and more than 65 nations. It offers a four-month part-time program for new and early-stage entrepreneurs that helps them develop their business ideas and form a company. Among the key requirements for graduation is the creation of a fully operational company by the end of the four-month program. As of 2018, over 3,500 companies had been created from the program, which raised over $800M funding in total.

Rocket Internet SE is a German Internet company headquartered in Berlin. The company builds startups and owns shareholdings in various models of internet retail businesses. The company model is known as a startup studio or a venture builder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Bentinck</span> British entrepreneur (born 1986)

Alice Yvonne Bentinck is a British entrepreneur. Along with Matt Clifford, she is the co-founder of Entrepreneur First, a London-based company builder and startup accelerator. Based in London and Singapore, EF funds ambitious individuals based across Europe and Asia to create startups. In 2017, it was announced that Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and Partner at Greylock, was leading a $12.4million investment into Entrepreneur First.

Entrepreneur First is an international talent investor, which supports individuals in building technology companies. Founded in 2011 by Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck, the company has offices in Toronto, London, Berlin, Paris, Singapore, Bangalore and San Francisco.

Co-Creation Hub, commonly referred to as Cc-HUB or the HUB, is a technology-oriented centre located in Yaba, a district of Lagos. Founded in 2010 by Bosun Tijani and Femi Longe, it provides a platform where technology-oriented people share ideas to solving social problems in Nigeria.

Berkeley SkyDeck (SkyDeck) is an entrepreneurship startup accelerator and incubator program which serves as a joint venture between the Haas School of Business and Berkeley College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 2012, SkyDeck promotes research and entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. It has become a top university incubator in both the United States and also worldwide.

Allen Lau is a Hong Kong-born Canadian entrepreneur who is the co-founder and former CEO of Wattpad.

Icehouse Ventures is a New Zealand-based venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Auckland and mainly focuses on the technology industry and has backed 200 companies. The firm also operates a variety of angel groups networks such as Ice Angels and Arc Angels. Icehouse Ventures was formally founded in 2019 as a separate company but had operated as part of the Icehouse group since 2001. In 2019, the founding CEO of the Icehouse stepped down as CEO and joined the board of directors of Icehouse Ventures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CIIE.CO</span> Indian startup accelerator

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.

Antler is a Singapore-based early stage investor founded in 2017. In 2023, Pitchbook ranked the company as the most active seed stage venture capital firm globally with 262 deals.

References

  1. ↑ Lapowsky, Issie (November 25, 2014). "The next big thing you missed: tech superstars build 'startup factories'". Wired .
  2. 1 2 3 Diallo, Ali (January 18, 2015). "How 'venture builders' are changing the startup model". VentureBeat . Retrieved 2016-05-09.
  3. ↑ "Pasadena-Based Heliogen Announces Nominations of Luminaries Stacey Abrams and Phyllis Newhouse to Its Board – Pasadena Now". www.pasadenanow.com. Retrieved 2021-12-22.
  4. ↑ Farmer, Ryan (2004). Idealab: First Mover, Last Survivor. California Institute of Technology.
  5. ↑ "Bill Gross: A Devotion to New Ideas | Stanford eCorner". ecorner.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  6. ↑ "The History Of The Startup Studio Model". www.startupstudios.com. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  7. ↑ Chernova, Yuliya (March 11, 2015). "Human Ventures Names CEO as Startup Studios Proliferate". Venture Capital Dispatch Via the Wall Street Journal.
  8. ↑ "Why Venture Builder/Startup Studio?". Enhance Ventures. Archived from the original on April 5, 2023. Retrieved April 5, 2023.
  9. ↑ Geron, Tomio (2017-01-23). "Atomic, With First Fund, Looks to Upend Venture-Capital Model". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2017-07-27.
  10. ↑ Vincent, Willie. "Startup Events London" . Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  11. ↑ "Pioneer Square Labs Grabs $12.5M To Dream Up, Then Kill Off Or Spin Out Startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-01-05.
  12. ↑ "eFounders unveils its next batch of enterprise SaaS startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  13. ↑ Duodeka (August 28, 2023). "Venture Building".
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