Accelerator Programs in Canada: Past, Present and Future

Accelerators are a new model of business incubators1 that focus on intense mentoring and business support to start-up companies for a defined period. Since 1994 the first accelerator program, YCombinator, was founded in the Silicon Valley, several hundred accelerators have started all around the world. Around 2010, the first accelerators started in Canada, following a model similar to the YCombinator. In this paper, we studied the Canadian accelerator industry at its inception, and again at present time. The evolution of this industry has been investigated and emerging trends have been identified. The paper is concluded with a set of recommendations for accelerator programs.