Title: Predicting the success of seed-stage startups to enter the acceleration program and receive seed money

Authors: Navid Mohammadi; Maysam Shafiee

Addresses: Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Tehran, 98021, Iran ' Faculty of Management and Accounting, Department of Management, Farabi Campus, University of Tehran, Qom, 98021, Iran

Abstract: The accelerators, like any other business, are looking for success and an acceptable return on investment. This research aims to reduce the risk of these decisions by providing a framework to evaluate startups in their pre-launch period and select startups to enter the acceleration and receiving seed money that are most likely to succeed. For this purpose, the Delphi fuzzy method is used to finalise the criteria, the affinity diagram, which is one of the design thinking tools, is used to model the framework and the best worst method (BWM) is to weight the framework criteria. Finally, the four startups present in the NextEra accelerator pre-launch period in Iran have been studied and evaluated. The most important criteria in this framework are including the technical feasibility of the idea, team skills, knowledge level, characteristics of a lead entrepreneur, the culture of cooperation, and commitment of the members in achieving the goals.

Keywords: new venture success; startup; seed accelerator; best worst method; BWM; affinity diagram; design thinking.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2022.122654

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2022 Vol.14 No.2, pp.168 - 201

Received: 16 Jun 2020
Accepted: 25 Jun 2021
Published online: 04 May 2022 *

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