Top 50 Startup Accelerators Based on Data — Now Updated for 2024

Snail With Rocket Boosters

Looking for the best startup accelerators? Cool, we got you! And the rankings are sure to surprise you. (Hint: they are not Y Combinator or Techstars!)

Did you know there are over 3,000 accelerators worldwide and over 1,000 in the United States alone? No wonder it’s confusing to figure out which ones are worth applying to.

Unlike other lists that are totally subjective, our list focuses on the thing that matters most to founders: the accelerators’ ability to set your startup on the path to success.

To judge accelerators’ ability to “accelerate,” we took a look at how many of their portfolio startups actually had an exit, such as an acquisition or initial public offering (IPO) on a major stock exchange. We measure this as a simple ratio of total number of portfolio companies to exits, which we call “exit rate.”

Those accelerators with the highest proportion of startups that had an exit, or exit rate, are ranked at the top. We also only included accelerators that had investments in either 2023 or 2024.

Alright, here we go. Below is our list for 2024:

The Best Startup Accelerator in the U.S. Is AngelPad

Top accelerators in the U.S. are AngelPad (34% exit rate), Plug and Play Insurtech (20%), gener8tor Insurance & Wealth Accelerator (20%), Stadia Ventures (19.05%), and DeltaClimeVT (18.18%).

Below is the full ranking:

RankAcceleratorPortfolio CompaniesExitsExit Rate
1AngelPad1194033.61%
2Plug and Play Insurtech982020.41%
3gener8tor Insurance & Wealth Accelerator10220.00%
4Stadia Ventures631219.05%
5DeltaClimeVT11218.18%
6Disney Accelerator55916.36%
7Elemental Excelerator1532516.34%
8MetaProp1191915.97%
9500 Global2,40438015.81%
10LAUNCH3425215.20%
11LearnLaunch Accelerator801113.75%
12MIT delta v1261612.70%
13Plug and Play1,55017611.35%
14Alchemist Accelerator5145811.28%
15Y Combinator5,18857511.08%
16Techstars4,57748911.15%
17Joules Accelerator28310.71%
18Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA)3443510.17%
19Cedars-Sinai Accelerator8889.09%
19VentureWell3339.09%
19OCEAN Accelerator2229.09%
19One Mind Accelerator1119.09%
2343North6768.96%
24IDEA: Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator10898.33%
25URBAN-X7667.89%
26Fusion7057.14%
27MassChallenge3,0642136.95%
28AlphaLab10576.67%
28GENIUS NY3026.67%
30Nex Cubed7756.49%
31gener8tor232156.47%
32Capital Innovators12486.45%
33Village Capital347226.34%
34HeartX1616.25%
35Neo Accelerator8256.10%
36Lighthouse Labs RVA8356.02%
37Tyson Ventures1815.56%
38NMotion7545.33%
39MedTech Innovator382205.24%
40SkyDeck Berkeley472234.87%
41Google for Startups1,530734.77%
42Blue Startups10554.76%
42Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs2114.76%
44Madworks Seed Accelerator8844.55%
45HAX322144.35%
45Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund2314.35%
45AWS Healthcare Accelerator2314.35%
48TinySeed9644.17%
49Starburst Accelerator7434.05%
50GSD Venture Studios5623.57%
Data via Crunchbase

Y Combinator, Techstars or 500 Startups Are NOT the Best

If you’re looking for popular accelerators like Y Combinator, Techstars or 500 Startups to top the list, we’re sorry to disappoint you. According to exit rate, YC and Techstars are ranked 15th and 16th respectively. 500 Startups is ranked slightly higher in 9th place. (If you are a woman or underrepresented founder, check out our list of top accelerators for women and underrepresented founders.)

Y Combinator’s exit rate, by contrast, was 11.08%, or roughly one-third of AngelPad’s. That basically means that if you get into AngelPad, you have three times higher probability of getting your startup to an acquisition or IPO than if you went to YC.

If you care about getting to an exit, perhaps it’s worth looking beyond the usual suspects such as YC, 500 Startups, and Techstars.

Bigger Is Not Better

Another interesting point to note is that all top 10 accelerators, except for 500 Global, which moved up into the top 10 in 2024, have fewer than 350 investments. The four most active accelerators have an average exit rate of about 11%, or less than half that of the top ones like AngelPad.

Accelerators at the bottom of the list have exit rates of about four percent, or one-seventh that of the best-performing ones. That means that startups getting into the top ten accelerators on this list have a 7X higher chance of reaching an exit relative to participating in accelerators at the bottom of our list.

The Best Small Startup Accelerators with Fewer than 100 Portfolio Companies

Since it’s clear that bigger isn’t necessarily better when it comes to startup accelerators, we wanted to see which micro-accelerators, or those with fewer than 100 portfolio companies (but more than 10), come out on top.

Not surprisingly, smaller startup accelerators seem to be much better at getting their portfolio companies to an exit than the big, popular ones!

Here are the top micro-accelerators based on the exit rate of their portfolio companies:

RankAcceleratorPortfolio CompaniesExitsExit Rate
1Plug and Play Insurtech982020.41%
2gener8tor Insurance & Wealth Accelerator10220.00%
3Stadia Ventures631219.05%
4DeltaClimeVT11218.18%
5Disney Accelerator55916.36%
6LearnLaunch Accelerator801113.75%
7Joules Accelerator28310.71%
8Cedars-Sinai Accelerator8889.09%
8VentureWell3339.09%
8OCEAN Accelerator2229.09%
8One Mind Accelerator1119.09%
1243North6768.96%
13URBAN-X7667.89%
14Fusion7057.14%
15GENIUS NY3026.67%
16Nex Cubed7756.49%
17HeartX1616.25%
18Neo Accelerator8256.10%
19Lighthouse Labs RVA8356.02%
20Tyson Ventures1815.56%
21NMotion7545.33%
22Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs2114.76%
23Madworks Seed Accelerator8844.55%
24Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund2314.35%
24AWS Healthcare Accelerator2314.35%
26TinySeed9644.17%
27Starburst Accelerator7434.05%
28GSD Venture Studios5623.57%
29Health Wildcatters8733.45%
30Inclusive Ventures Lab5923.39%
31Target Takeoff9033.33%
32PharmStars6523.08%
33Sputnik ATX7522.67%
34Greentown Labs3912.56%
35BDev Ventures4012.50%
36Leap Venture Studio4112.44%
37Lair East Labs4312.33%
38Aurelia Ventures9022.22%
39Consortium For Technology & Innovation in Pediatrics5311.89%
40Fuel5611.79%
40Sanabil 500 MENA Seed Accelerator5611.79%
42Global Insurance Accelerator5811.72%
43Luminate6311.59%
44Alliance DAO7311.37%
45XLerateHealth8011.25%
Data via Crunchbase

The key takeaway is that it might be worth taking a closer look at smaller accelerators, which seem to be better able to help portfolio companies reach an exit. It’s worth noting that not all things are created equal, as those at the bottom of the list for portfolios below 100 do not outperform those at the bottom of the overall top-50.

In Summary

I recognize that this analysis, although based on data, is imperfect. It would have been nice to also look at satisfaction rate, mark-ups in valuation, exit values, founder outcomes, and other factors not captured here. At the same time, it’s interesting to see that smaller accelerator programs tend to perform better, perhaps casting into scrutiny the value of bigger, more established programs.

Hopefully, this article helps you, the founder, identify those accelerator programs that are likely to be the best fit for your startup.

An Important Caveat About this List

We pulled data on accelerators from Crunchbase. I’m sure there are some gaps in the data, but it’s probably more than good enough to get a reliable ranking. However, there probably isn’t much of a difference between, say, number fifteen and sixteen on the list.


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