Just 11 years after Y Combinator funded the first handful of companies in the first seed accelerator, over $20 billion has been raised by accelerator graduates. For those keeping track at home, this is just 16 months after accelerator graduates passed the $10 billion raised milestone.
Over $5 billion in exits have already been achieved by accelerator graduates. Companies that have yet to exit are collectively valued at over $80 billion.
Early stage startups continue to be a power-law phenomenon. Despite funding over 6,000 companies in nearly 200 programs around the world, 75% of the investment dollars have gone into accelerator graduates of just four programs: Y Combinator, Techstars, 500 startups, and Angelpad.
That said, this stat isn’t as dramatic as it might appear. Those four programs have collectively funded over 40% of the 6,000+ graduates. Essentially, they’re prominent because they figured out ways to scale effectively, either through bigger class sizes or more frequent programs. Between these programs’ alumni and mentor networks, and reputational effects, they’re able to consistently find, fund, and mentor a higher-achieving tier of startups.
And while you obviously don’t have to go through an accelerator to succeed; it helps. Pitchbook found that one-third of startups that raised a Series A round in 2015 went through an accelerator. But only about 1,200 companies per year went through an accelerator in 2013, 2014, and 2015, and there were far more than 3,600 companies started each of those years. So while companies that go through an accelerator are a small portion of early-stage startups (likely 10% or less), they are a much larger percentage of successful startups (33%).
Why Seed-DB?
One of the big reasons I created Seed-DB is because the world of accelerators is plagued by anecdata. It’s easy to remember the accelerators that helped the B2C companies that you may use today; it’s harder to know about accelerators behind the B2B hard-tech companies that don’t get a lot of press but are growing like crazy. I also believe there are some great accelerators (or at least accelerators that have found great companies) that don’t get the attention they deserve.
For example, did you know the Flashpoint program at Georgia Tech funded two companies that have both gone on to raise over $100million each? Did you know the third biggest exit of an accelerator company (for $350million) came from AngelPad?
Seed-DB exists to give entrepreneurs the data on which companies have been through which programs, in order to make more informed choices. To answer the questions: is an accelerator right for me? Which accelerator is right for me? And why?
Seed-DB – relaunch
Today also marks a re-launch of Seed-DB! While the user interface hasn’t changed substantially (I’m not a strong front-end developer), the data structures behind the scenes have changed substantially.
Charts & Tables
Tabular data is valuable, but charts bring data to life. Seed-DB now has a dedicated “Charts & Tables” page to showcase this information. There are four key charts:
- Total number of accelerator companies over time, updated monthly
- Total funding (in $) of accelerator companies over time, updated daily – now > $20 billion
- Number of funding rounds over time, updated daily
- Number of accelerator cohorts/batches over time, updated monthly
- Log/Log chart of company total funding (for companies that have raised >$500k)
You can see from these charts that there was a significant change in trajectory with more companies going through accelerators starting in 2011, which increased further in 2012. The chart of total funding has a significant trajectory change in 2014, which increased again in 2015.
The same page also has some of the most popular tables:
- Companies that have raised $1 million or more
- Companies that have raised $10 million or more
- Companies that have raised $100 million or more
- Companies that have exited
Focus on Cohorts
The biggest data structure change has been a pivot on accelerator cohorts or batches. Previously each accelerator was a flat list of companies they had funded, though Seed-DB did store the month they started with at the program. Now each accelerator shows the highlights of each individual cohort, and then you can drill down further to see individual companies in that cohort. (You can toggle back to the old view if you want, though.)
This is significantly faster for most users, but also shows a new layer of detail. It’s clear to see that one of the most successful YC companies to date (AirBnB) was in one of the smallest YC classes ever, in the middle of the financial crisis in Jan – Mar 2009.
Additionally, this cleans up the user experience for accelerators that run multiple programs in different cities or verticals. (Specifically, programs like Techstars, DreamIT Ventures, Startupbootcamp, Wayra, etc) Instead of each of these programs getting listed as separate accelerators, the various cohorts are all grouped together in one overall accelerator.
Sign Up for Updates
Interested in how accelerators progress over time? It’s been just 16 months for accelerator companies to raise $10 billion; would you like to know how quickly the next $5 or $10 billion is raised? You can now click Login, OAuth with Google or Facebook, and click one button to sign up for updates on when high-level milestones are reached. (Your email address won’t be shared, and updates will be infrequent.)
You can also sign up for the Seed-DB newsletter, which will have more analysis and long-form updates, and is sent even more infrequently.
Better on Mobile
While I won’t say Seed-DB is truly mobile optimized, the tables of data in Seed-DB can be used far more easily on mobile than they ever have before, and the new charts work great on mobile, too. (Thanks, d3.js!)
Patreon Campaign
Finally, I’ve kicked off a Patreon campaign to help support Seed-DB. If you find Seed-DB valuable for yourself or the startup community, please consider supporting the campaign! No funds will go to Jed; they will all be used to either pay monthly infrastructure costs, or go to contractors to help with data collection. In other words, any contributions only go to keeping Seed-DB running and improving data quality.
Personal Disclaimer: I did my first research into seed accelerators in the summer of 2009, and created Seed-DB in the summer of 2012. Two and a half years ago I started working for Techstars as a Product Manager. This post represents my personal views, and not those of Techstars. All data comes from Seed-DB alone.
