Top Internet startups USA

UPDATE:Check out the 2012 Startup Accelerators and Incubator Rankings released on August 22, 2012.

There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with pure co-working spaces) as they offer entrepreneurs a way to spend a few months laser focused on a single idea. Through the accelerator or incubator they receive mentoring, guidance and a small amount of funding in return for a small stake in the company. With all the startup accelerator programs popping up across the country we were curious to find out which programs would offer the biggest bang for the time, money and effort spent in the program.

As a part of his field work for the Kauffman Fellows Program (not to be confused with Kauffman Foundation), Aziz Gilani from DFJ Mercury, working in partnership with Tech Cocktail and the Kellogg School of Management, set out to determine the best startup accelerator programs in America and rank them. Assisting in the evaluation effort were Professor Yael Hochberg and MBA Candidate Kelly Quann from Northwestern University. Together there were numerous interviews with VC’s, Angels, and program graduates performed and then the data was aggregated. This is the first high-level published report of the findings – Aziz Gilani will be sharing a more detailed look at the findings in July, so stay tuned.

High-level Methodology
First, a list of startup accelerator programs across the country was compiled. To be part of the report, the programs had to meet a certain criteria. The programs were then ranked using a methodology that was created by the team, made up of three basic components. It weighed 25 percent by qualified financing events (i.e. companies that got funded after completing the program), 50 percent by the success of the companies that came out of an accelerator and finally 25 percent on accelerator program characteristics (i.e. money startups receive, equity accelerator takes, with a bonus for the size of the alumni base). Each accelerator was put through this methodology and then the rankings were generated. Additionally, these rankings were supplemented by interviews with classic VC’s, investors and past accelerator participants to better understand the perception and reputation of the various accelerator programs in the industry.