The role of incubators and regional factors influencing the location decision of academic spin-offs

Abstract

The recent years have witnessed university business incubators being major contributors to regional development by supporting and nurturing academic spin-offs, and fostering innovation. However, with the academic spin-offs scaling up, they decide to exit the incubator and sometimes even migrate to another city or region. This study recognizes the migration pattern of academic spin-offs from Delft and Wageningen and identifies not only the regional factors influencing the location choice of academic spin-offs but also incubator related factors. The study is exploratory and follows a mixed approach with both qualitative and quantitative analysis done through the study of secondary data from 2012, desk research, literature review, semi-structured interviews, semi-structured questionnaires and comparative case studies.

To begin with, a desk research was conducted tracing academic spin-offs in the incubators of both the university cities- Yes!Delft from Delft and StartHub from Wageningen. The academic spin-offs were tracked for their current location, technology, industry, ownership type, founding year and age to recognize any pattern. Through the semi-structured interviews with the experts from each of the two incubators, the types of support, activities and policies were investigated. The interviews confirmed the findings from desk research in the areas they prefer or most dominant technology in the incubators. While Yes!Delft is dominated by complex tech and MedTech academic spin-offs, for StartHub (StartLife) is dominated by food and agritech.

Through the literature study, a conceptual framework was devised with the factors recognized from existing literature influencing the stay and exit of startups from the incubator and region. Apart from confirming the factors from the conceptual framework, a new set of factors were added from the interviews, questionnaire and the case studies. The study concludes with individual frameworks for Delft and Wageningen and an overall framework with a combined list of reasons. Quantitative analysis was conducted briefly through mean comparison of support factors and appreciated based on Likert scale for the data from 2012 and 2020 of Delft and Wageningen. The regional support still remains the most appreciated category of support influencing the location choice of academic spin-offs. While most startups that exit Yes!Delft still remain located in either Delft or the neighboring cities the startups that exit from StartHub have moved to bigger cities such as Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam.

The migration pattern can be explained through the findings of the study. The research shows that as and when startups scale up they seek not just better accommodation and infrastructural facilities but also the need for developing work culture, market agglomeration and closer distance to clients, suppliers and other resources apart from university reputation, easy access and availability, affordability of resources and social ties. In spite of academic spin-offs exiting the incubators, Regional development can be improved by influencing them to stay located in the region. The support can be offered not just by the infrastructural support by incubators but also through the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem as a whole by nurturing them with resources and social ties.