The links above are the “living” data. As I hear about new YC (or other) companies launching I've been updating the files. I may have missed some, so if you know of any others please let me know!

Thank you!

The links above are the “living” data. As I hear about new YC (or other) companies launching I've been updating the files. I may have missed some, so if you know of any others please let me know!

Thank you!

I've read it all, and I understand your point about focusing on a determined field, I'll need to research more on that.

Is difficult to understand how, in spite of globalization and the democratization of opportunities we are living, there are still things that depend on location, and that once someone takes the head, is difficult to catch them up.

Anyway, as I've said before, your work is a great source of information for me. Thanks for open it to everybody!

Juan

Even though the accelerator is getting diluted, the value of the company is rising faster than the decline in ownership stake. So a hit company does well for everyone.

I though that, if the company's value increases, the accelarator's share decreases, which didn't make much sense But it's all clear now, thanks again.

This is a good question, and has to do with general dilution of ownership stake.

Accelerators all invest in (typically) the very first round of funding for a particular ownership stake, generally about 5-10%. (YC's median is 6%) What's important is that they do no other funding of the company.

Successful companies generally go on to have more and more rounds of funding. Since accelerators don't put any additional money in, their ownership stake is reduced with each new funding round. I assumed that as a company becomes more successful they go through more rounds of funding (which isn't always the case), which means the accelerators have the lowest ownership stakes in the most successful companies.

I hope that makes sense!

Great work, a lot of useful info, but I have a question. I don't understand why, at the financial model part, the accelarator has a diminished shares: from 5%, to 0.5%, 2%, 4%… Why is that?

If you read my paper, you'll see that I specifically addressed the seed accelerator model that Y Combinator pioneered. Y Combinator seeks out, funds, and supports new businesses from across the world, investing money and time for a stake of the business. If you look at IdeaLab's site, they specifically state: “Idealab is not accepting outside business proposals for review.” As it's a completely different model, I didn't address it.

My personal thoughts on IdeaLab is that it is very difficult to get their model correct, and is largely dependent on the people involved. In fact, I'd say it's very rare that that model is consistently successful. But I might be a bit of a pessimist…