Article · 6 min read

Seed Accelerator Rankings Project: How Programs Are Actually Measured

Yael Hochberg, Susan Cohen, Daniel Fehder · MIT Sloan Free Intermediate

This is the closest thing to an audited scorecard for accelerators, run by three former founders turned academics who collect confidential portfolio data under NDA. It hands you the exact metrics to demand of any program you are evaluating: qualified fundraising, startup valuations, survival at 12/24/36 months, and founder recommendation (NPS). Tellingly, Y Combinator declined to participate once it became a fund, a reminder that the programs most worth your equity are usually the ones willing to be measured.

  • The metrics that matter are qualified fundraising, valuations, survival at 12/24/36 months, and whether graduates would recommend it, so ask the program for those numbers directly.
  • Real founder satisfaction comes from surveying nearly 1,000 graduates, not curated testimonials, so backchannel to alumni the program did not hand you.
  • A program dodging transparency is itself a signal: the strongest accelerators submit to confidential outcome audits, weaker ones stay opaque.
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The question it answers

  1. How do I do accelerator diligence in reverse: what should I ask alumni and staff before I say yes?

Read with it

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