• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2022

There is growing empirical evidence that passion is an important part of entrepreneurship and influences the intentions, behaviors and performance of entrepreneurs, employees and startups. Passion is especially important in an entrepreneurial context, given the effort and challenge that entrepreneurs starting a startup must overcome. The purpose of this study was to confirm the effect of the passion of startup entrepreneurs participating in the accelerator incubation program and the passion of accelerator entrepreneurs and managers on the entrepreneurial performance of incubator startups. In addition, we tried to confirm whether entrepreneurial self-efficacy plays a mediating role in this influence relationship. The survey was conducted online by startups entrepreneur who completed the accelerator incubation program. A total of 330 questionnaires were used for the analysis. As a result of the empirical analysis, it was confirmed that the passion of startup entrepreneurs and the passion of accelerator entrepreneurs and managers all had a positive (+) effect on the entrepreneurial performance of incubator startups. The influence of passion was found to be high in the order of startup entrepreneurs, accelerator entrepreneurs, and accelerator managers. It was confirmed that entrepreneurial self-efficacy plays a mediating role between the passion of startup entrepreneurs, the passion of accelerator entrepreneurs, and the entrepreneurial performance of incubator startups, respectively. However, no significant mediating role was identified between the passion of accelerator managers and the entrepreneurial performance of incubator startups. This study is significant in empirically confirming for the first time that the passion of accelerator entrepreneurs and managers has a positive effect on the entrepreneurial performance of incubator startups. The passion of accelerator entrepreneurs and managers is playing an important role as a hidden lynchpin in creating the entrepreneurial performance of incubator startups. In particular, since the passion of accelerator entrepreneurs has a great influence on the performance of incubator startups, it is necessary to recognize this fact and carefully examine their passion reputation when startups select accelerators.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.95-114
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• 2023

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution progresses, the importance of startups is becoming more prominent. Additionally, the role of accelerators in ensuring the sustainability of startups is also being emphasized. Therefore, in this study, among the services provided by accelerators to startups, the mentoring service, education service, funding service, and networking service tried to empirically analyze the structural relationship that affects startup performance through the dynamic capabilities of start-ups. To achieve this, we conducted a survey in February 2023 targeting startup CEOs and executives who had experience with accelerator program services. A total of 238 valid responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling with Amos 24. The results of the empirical analysis were as follows. The accelerator program services, including mentoring, education, funding, and networking services, had a significant positive effect on startup dynamic capabilities. Among the accelerator program sub-factors, networking services had the highest impact on startup dynamic capabilities, followed by mentoring, funding, and education services. Furthermore, startup dynamic capabilities were found to have a significant positive effect on startup performance. On the other hand, startup dynamic capabilities were found to mediate the relationship between mentoring, education, funding, networking services, and startup performance. Dynamic capabilities are a critical factor for startups, and the finding that accelerator programs can have a significant impact on startup performance by mediating these dynamic capabilities is significant both academically and practically.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.33-46
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• 2019

Even though Korea is strengthening the support for startups due to the limitations of growth policies focusing on large companies, the survival rate of startups is very low, so that there should be more efforts to increase the survival rate of startups. As the existing startup support institutions have provided only fragmentary supports to startups, it would be necessary to have the comprehensive support institutions. As an alternative, the accelerator providing the comprehensive support such as spatial support, education, mentoring, networking, seed investment, and connection for follow-up investment to the initial startups was legalized in Korea of 2016, based on the registration system. Currently, within less than two year from then, there have been much interest in it enough to have about 136 registered accelerators. In the United States, the accelerator was introduced more than ten years ago. In Korea, however, it is still in the initial stage, so that the researches or social consensus on the accelerator are not sufficient. Thus, this study aims to suggest the measures for the development of accelerator and the consensus on the decision making for the selection of accelerator of startups, by researching which parts are considered when startups in the accelerator stage select the accelerator. As a result of the empirical analysis, the factor that has the greatest influence on decision making factors when startup chooses an accelerator was the subsequent investment attraction. This can be explained to the accelerator as desired, considering the factor that the startup of the initial stage places the most importance on growth as investment. We hope that these research results will be sustainable in future research related to accelerators, in hopes that it will be useful for establishing accelerator policies for domestic startups and direction for revitalizing related industries.

• Korean small business review
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.187-219
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• 2021

Startup accelerators, a new type of investment entity, have emerged as a way to solve the difficulties of early startups and existing investment methods with high risk. With the visible performances of these startup accelerators on the success of startups, medium and large accelerator companies have emerged, along with the increasing size of seed money they invest in. In addition, differences between small and medium&large accelerator companies are emerging. Therefore, startups need informations on what factors to prepare for attracting startup accelerators' investment. Accelerators also need determinant criteria to select startups as the amount of investment grows. However, the study on this subject is not currently being conducted. Therefore, we conducted the study through dividing the average amount of seed money into small and medium & large-sized investment groups and examined the differences in major investment determinants, investment purposes, and major accelerating programs. As the results of this study, small investment groups could be subdivided into 'consulting-oriented accelerators' and medium- and large-sized investment groups into 'investment-oriented accelerators'. In addition, major services and investment purposes and investment decision criteria vary depending on the size of the investment. I think these findings will be good standards for accelerator companies, startups in need of their help, and follow-up researchers.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.27-42
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• 2020

Startup accelerators have emerged as new investment entities that help early startups, which are not easy to survive continuously due to lack of funds, commercialization capabilities, and experiences. As their positive performance on early startups and the ecosystem has been proven, the number of early startups which want to receive their investment is also increasing. However, they are vaguely preparing to attract accelerators' investment because they do not have any information on what factors the accelerators consider important. In addition, researches on startup accelerators are also at an early level, so there are no remarkable prior studies on factors that decide on investment. Therefore, this study aims to help startups prepare for investment attraction by looking at what factors are important for accelerators to invest, and to provide meaningful implications to academia. In the preceding study, we derived five upper level categories, 26 lower level accelerators' investment determinants through the qualitative meta-synthesis method, secondary data analysis, observation on US accelerators and in-depth interviews. In this study, we want to derive important implications by deriving priorities of the accelerators' investment determinants. Therefore, we used AHP that are evaluated as the suitable methodology for deriving importance and priority. The analysis results show that accelerators value market-related factors most. This means that startups that are subject to investment by accelerators are early-stage startups, and many companies have not fully developed their products or services. Therefore, market-related factors that can be evaluated objectively seem to be more important than products (or services) that are still ambiguous. Next, it was found that the factors related to the internal workforce of startups are more important. Since accelerators want to develop their businesses together with start-ups and team members through mentoring, ease of collaboration with them is very important, which seems to be important. The overall priority analysis results of the 26 investment determinants show that 'customer needs' and 'founders and team members' understanding of customers and markets' (0.62) are important and high priority factors. The results also show that startup accelerators consider the customer-centered perspective very important. And among the factors related to startups, the most prominent factor was the founder's openness and execution ability. Therefore, it can be confirmed that accelerators consider the ease of collaboration with these startups very important.

• 한국벤처창업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2021.04a
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• pp.43-47
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• 2021

2020년 8월 중소벤처기업부는 '20년 상반기 벤처기업 및 벤처투자 받은 기업의 일자리 동향, 벤처투자 및 펀드결성 동향 등을 분석한 결과 '20년 상반기 혁신 벤처·스타트업의 투자는 줄었지만, 일자리는 늘어난 것으로 분석됐다. 이는 전년 동월대비 1.3%(35.2만명) 감소한 것을 고려하면 괄목할 만한 성장으로, 코로나19로 인해 어려운 상황에서도 경제협력개발기구(OECD) 국가 중에서 경제성장률 감소폭이 적었던 것은 창업기업이 우리 경제의 버팀목 역할을 하고 있기 때문으로 풀이된다(중소벤처깅업부, 2020). 예비 창업기업 및 초기 창업기업을 위한 전문보육 및 투자를 맞춤형 패키지로 지원하는 엑셀러레이터의 역할은 대중화된 창업생태계 속에서 기대효과가 크다(김선우, 2015). 2020년 8월에 개정된 벤처투자총진법 시행은 액셀러레이터의 제도가 구체화 되고 초기 창업기업에 대한 투자가 보다 활발해져 실질적인 지원이 가능해 질 것을 기대된다. 이러한 액셀러레이터에 대한 관심은 선행연구에서도 나타나고 있다. 국내의 엑셀러레이터는 빠른 확산에도 불구하고 아직까지 그 효과가 검증되지 않은 상황이며, 엑셀러레이터의 지원성과를 객관적으로 평가할 수 있는 체계가 요구되고 있다(김용재, 2014). 액셀러레이터 지원 및 역량과 초기창업기업 성과 간의 연관성을 연구할 필요한 연관성이 있다고 제시한다. 이에 본 연구에서는 최근 3년 이내 스타트업 액셀러레이터로부터 보육 및 투자지원을 받은 초기창업기업 관계자를 대상으로 초기 창업기업 성과와 액셀러레이터 지원간에 관계에서 액셀러레이터 역량이 어떤 역할을 하는지에 대해 분석하고 자 한다.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.127-140
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• 2022

Recently, accelerators are attracting attention as a new startup incubator. This study empirically analyzed the relative importance and priority of decision-making factors when a startup selects an accelerator using the AHP technique. As a result, startup founders recognized the importance of decision-making factors in the order of funding factors, program factors, and accelerator characteristic factors. there was a difference in the relative importance of detailed factors between startup founders and accelerator workers, depending on the location of the business site and the presence or absence of sales performance. This suggests that accelerators need to strengthen the financial support capabilities and improve customized services to meet the needs of startups. This study can be used as a decision-making criterion when a startup selects an accelerator, and can be used as basic data for additional research on the accelerator program.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.13-35
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• 2020

Startup accelerators are a new type of investors providing a certain amount of shares for imparting education, mentoring, networking, and providing space and seed money that can directly resolve the difficulties faced by nascent entrepreneurs (Clarysse, 2016). Startup accelerators have expanded worldwide as their influence over the startup ecosystem has increasingly been established (Pauwels et al., 2016; Cohen & Hochberg, 2014). This study was conducted to derive investment determinants of startup accelerators that are emerging as major investment players around the world. To this end, the accelerator-type determinants of investment were derived. As previous research on this topic is nonexistent, this process involved qualitative meta-synthesis, literature reviews, observation, and in-depth interviews. First, more than 30 research papers were examined for the determinants of investment for firms at an early stage of their foundation, and the categories and determinants of investment in the relevant studies were comparatively analyzed using qualitative meta-synthesis. Further, related data were investigated to identify the characteristics of accelerators, and the startup evaluation process of US accelerators was studied. The more than 100 questions raised during this process were coded to examine the determinants of investment that accelerators considered important. In-depth interviews were conducted with four US accelerators to identify the characteristics of accelerators and key determinants of investment. Ultimately, 5 categories of accelerator-type determinants of investment and 26 subordinate determinants of investment were derived. The results were verified and supplemented by consulting with seven accelerators in Korea. The results were confirmed after pilot tests and verification by seven domestic accelerators. After confirming the accelerator-type determinants, the reliability of them was verified by examining the importance and priority of each category through the quantitative survey of Korean accelerators. The research that elicited the accelerator-type investment determinants is the first research and is expected to be a major reference to the progress of subsequent studies. This research that systematically derived the investment determinants of the accelerator is expected to make major contributions to the progress of follow-up studies, the process of selecting startups, and the investment decision-making process of the accelerators.

• 한국벤처창업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2018.11a
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• pp.283-288
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• 2018

스타트업의 자금조달 능력은 초기 스타트업 생존에 가장 직결되는 문제이다. 스타트업은 정부 지원금을 비롯하여 엔젤투자자, 벤처캐피탈 등으로부터 자금을 지원받고 있지만 초기기업 회수시장의 불확실성으로 인해 투자 규모는 작은 편이다. 이에 따라 초기기업에 투자함과 동시에 경영 및 기술 멘토링, 교육, 관리 등을 체계적으로 지원하는 '액셀러레이터'가 최근 창업생태계의 핵심으로 떠오르고 있다. 액셀러레이터는 단순하게 인큐베이팅 시스템을 제공하는 것이 아니다. 초기기업의 팀빌딩부터 성장 과정을 함께하는 '공동 창업자'와 같은 역할을 하면서 이들이 성장해나갈 수 있도록 집중적인 멘토링과 교육 등의 프로그램을 제공한다. 이러한 시스템을 거친 스타트업은 생존 기간이 상대적으로 높고, 벤처캐피탈도 이렇게 성장한 스타트업 투자에 보다 더 적극적으로 참여하는 경향이 있다. 하지만 액셀러레이터 설립의 역사가 오래되지 않아, 관련 연구는 비교적 다양하지 않은 편이다. 이에 본 연구에서는 엔젤투자자, 벤처캐피탈과 다른 액셀러레이터의 특징이 무엇인지 분석하고, 특히 액셀러레이터가 스타트업 투자의사결정시 영향을 미치는 요인에는 어떤 것들이 있는지 렌즈모델을 통해 알아보고자 한다.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.19-31
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• 2022

Currently, the role of public accelerators in the domestic accelerator market is gradually expanding. Accordingly, in order to establish relevant policies properly, it is necessary to check the effect and validity of public accelerators' investment. However, there is no quantitative research conducted on domestic accelerators, using their financial data, as domestic accelerators have a short history and quantitative data on them are not disclosed. Therefore, this study conducted an empirical analysis with financial data of the startups that received equity investments from public accelerators to confirm the effect of public accelerators'investment in startups. A regression analysis was conducted with financial data from 112 startups that acquired investments from public accelerators in the period of 2016~2020. And the findings are as follows: First, it was found that the initial investment of public accelerators had an effect on the growth and profitability of startups. Specifically, it was confirmed that the initial investment of public accelerators had a positive (+) effect on sales growth rates and total asset growth rates, which are growth indicators. Second, it was found that the joint investment of public accelerators had a significant positive (+) effect on profit margin, an indicator of profitability, rather than on growth. Therefore, it is deemed that it will be a great force for growth if investment in the early-stage startups that showed significant investment results in this study is continuously expanded in combination with support projects, which are a strength of public accelerators. Since this study has confirmed the investment effect of public accelerators, it is deemed necessary to actively promote policies that direct public accelerators' projects toward improving the performance of startups through joint investment with the private sector and supplementing private accelerators' deficiencies.