A recent research paper from Syracuse University - Boon or Boondoggle? Business Incubation as Enterpreneurship Policy - has a lot of interesting data on incubators mixed in with the usual academic jargon.
The chart below is from a presentation given by the study author. It shows the growth pattern of incubators over the last couple of decades. There are more than 1400 incubators today, up from just 12 in 1980. As a recent Business Week article points out, this growth is expected to continue.
The paper and presentation has some really interesting data on the ownership of incubated firms:
- minority owned firms only comprise .5% of incubated firms.
- women owned firms only comprise 6.1% of incubated firms
These numbers are quite surprising since most incubators are non-profit and at least in part government funded.
Other interesting data includes:
- The Economic Development Agency has given out 30 incubator construction grants in 2010
- The average grant size is $1.5 million
- The expected operating budget for each of the funded incubators is $500k per year.
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