Acceleration and Access to Finance in Central America
YEAR:
Author(s): A. Davidson

Summary

“While studies have found that acceleration does, in the aggregate, have a positive effect on new venture growth, further investigation has shown that there is significant unmet need for financial capital, particularly in developing economies. Little investigation has been done on how accelerators (particularly those that do not invest in their ventures directly) make connections with finance providers and whether these efforts are effective. The Global Accelerator Learning Initiative (GALI), a partnership between the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and Emory University, was created to explore questions such as these. Between 2013 – 2020, GALI partnered with dozens of accelerator programs to collect detailed data from entrepreneurs who applied to their respective application processes. These entrepreneurs, including those not selected into a program, were then resurveyed annually to gather valuable follow-up data about the status of their ventures over time. This knowledge brief explores GALI data from Central American startups, as well as qualitative insights from accelerators and finance providers.”