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Emerging Markets Theme Research Seminar: Valentina Assenova
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Startup accelerators have emerged as important loci for organizational learning among early-stage startups. These organizations use a cohort structure from which a focal startup can draw new knowledge, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends. We suggest that the quality and geographic diversity of a startup’s peers in the same cohort affect the value that entrepreneurs derive from accelerators and enable higher rates of post-acceleration startup growth. We use applicant-level data from 23,364 early-stage startups that applied to 408 accelerators in 177 emerging and developing economies across Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa between 2013 and 2019 and a matched case-control design to evaluate these cohort effects. Our results show that the quality and geographic diversity of peers in the same cohort were associated with higher perceived value among applicants from being in a cohort of like-minded entrepreneurs and higher rates of post-acceleration growth in equity funding, revenue, full-time employment, and wages paid among accelerated startups, compared to similar non-accelerated startups. These benefits varied widely across regions and programs and were greater for startups that had more traction and innovation coming into an accelerator.
Valentina A. Assenova is the Edward B. and Shirley R. Shils Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Her research centers on the formation, growth, and funding of early-stage firms, with a focus on emerging and developing economies. She has collaborated with organizations such as FINCA International and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation on projects and initiatives that advance entrepreneurship and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. She holds a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. from Yale University, an M.B.A. from the University of Cambridge, and a B.Sc. in Economics from the Wharton School.