
Accelerators Can’t Be Rung Zero of the Venture Capital Ladder - antr
http://betaspring.com/blog/2012/11/29/accelerators-can%E2%80%99t-be-rung-zero-venture-capital-ladder
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macavity23
Money quote: _Here’s what we’ve really got to confront: Venture Capital is
INELASTIC. No matter how awesome and investable accelerators help these new
startups to be, venture capital doesn’t have room for all of them._

While this may be true, I don't think this implies the premise of the title.
Yes, not all of those startups will make it to 'proper' VC, but I think they
produce information that can means those that DO make it are better-chosen.

From a VC point of view, I imagine that knowing what a potential funding
target has done with their $20k accelerator funding is very valuable, and will
lead to wiser investments.

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myriad
Agreed. I interpreted the title and article to mean that accelerators cannot
be rung zero of ONLY the venture capital ladder, which seems to be a
perception trend. The article doesn't imply that what accelerators do isn't
valuable for venture capitalists. It definitely is. Just that accelerators are
for accelerating startups, many of whom will take funding paths other than VC.

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jeremy1217
Great point. I think all accelerators start out that way but now raising money
from venture capitalists is the marker of success and I think is missing the
whole point of accelerating. It also turns start ups off that could benefit
from accelerators that don't wont to raise money from VC.

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atear
Fair point. I probably should have made the title "Accelerators Can't Only Be
Rung Zero of the Venture Capital Ladder". Accelerators definitely create
higher fidelity information for a VC on startups, especially for those that
engage pre-demo day. I'm more interested in solving for increasing options for
startups that are investment grade, but not VC scale.

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testoo
or "Accelerators Can't Just Be a Rung on the Venture Capital Ladder"

