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Here is list of incubators around the world that are helping entrepreneurs to build their business. Because of the tremendous amount of startup activity, there seems to be some overlap between accelerators and incubators. Some people use the term incubator and accelerator interchangeably and that is not right. There are differences in the way these two are operated. For e.g., an accelerator typically selects a startup (or a bunch of startups) and works closely with them for a defined period of time (about 8 weeks to 4-5 months), while an incubator doesn’t work like that most of the times. However, due to the optimism and increase in the number of entrepreneurial ventures that are being rolled out, some incubators are now changing that norm and are holding a cut-off point or a review point anywhere between 6 months to 1 year where they check the progress of the project and decide on providing further support.
According to Forbes, an incubator is physically locating your business in one central work space with many other startup companies. In many cases, the startups in these incubators can all be venture funded by the same investor group.
You can remain in the space as long as you need to, or until your business has grown to the scale it needs to relocate to its own space. We tried to carefully evaluate multiple incubators and have built a list below. Incubators that guide startups or ideas into a marketable business and have some exposure to the FinTech space.
Innotribe
Innotribe is supported by SWIFT and was launched in 2009. It organizes startup challenges every year spanning EMEA, Americas, and APAC. The 2015 Startup Challenge event was held in London, New York, Cape Town, and Singapore. The event was open for both early stage and growth stage startups at each location. Winners at each location would be hosted at Sibos, Singapore for the Startup Challenge 2015 Finale. Early stage startups would be required to pitch their idea to a large audience of decision makers of the financial services world while growth stage startups would host exhibition booths and provide live demos for their products. The number of startups that participated at these events has been increasing YoY. 2011 witnessed 9 startups, 2012-15, 2013-38, 2014-45, and 2015-60 startups participated in the Startup Challenge event.
Sponsors for the event were: HP, Invest Northern Ireland, Level39, Deutsche Bank, Luxembourg for Finance, Wells Fargo, and SWIFT
Tech City UK
Tech City UK provides a platform for digital technology businesses to be established in the UK. They provide support for startups, established businesses, and budding entrepreneurs. As part of its goal to support new business idea/entrepreneurs, they have a program – Digital Business Academy, in partnership with Cambridge University Judge Business School, University College London and digital skills experts, Founder Centric. They provide the know-how for a digital business that helps one to start, grow or join a digital business. Another program, Future Fifty, supports 50 UK-based companies to scale their business.
Founder Institute
Founder Institute (FI) is an early stage incubator that has established its presence in 45 countries. They run their incubator programs in multiple cities in the 45 countries. They also claim that around 80% success of its startup graduates. Unlike many other incubators, FI takes a fee from applying graduates, profiles them and upon selection for the program, the founder needs to further pay some fees to attend the 4-month program. The founders are required to contribute warrants of a certain percentage to the ‘Shared Liquidity Pool’, 30% of which is shared with the graduates of the particular program. Some of the FinTech startups from this program are Peerby, RealtyMogul, and Zipmark.
Startupweekend
Startup Weekends, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs, are 54-hour events starting with Friday night pitches that end with Sunday night demos and presentations. It provides a platform for collaboration between like-minded individuals, for talks by industry leaders, and provides feedback. They have done over 1,500 events in 726 countries covering more than 13,000 startups.
Main Incubator
Main Incubator was formed in 2013 and is run in partnership with Commerzbank in Germany. The program works by accepting invitations from startups, upon selection the terms and conditions are set for the startups to enter the program. After 4-5 months of the initial phase where the team starts building their product with the support (VC Funding, office space, and expert know-how) from the incubator, the investment committee would review the status and decide on further funding.