Best Startup Accelerators for Women and Underrepresented Founders Based on Data — Updated for 2023

While more women and founders of color are starting startups, investment in startups led by women, Black and Latinx founders continues to stay persistently low.

Startup accelerators are often the first step on a founder’s investment journey, so it’s critical to see which startup accelerators are most likely to invest in underrepresented founders.

We rank those accelerators with the highest proportion of diversity investments at the top, using this measure as a proxy for their propensity to invest in women and multicultural founders.

Our dataset includes U.S.-based startup accelerators via Crunchbase. I do want to point out, however, that Crunchbase only recently started tracking diversity investment metrics, so this data set might be a bit off.

In case you’re curious to know what Crunchbase defines as “diversity investments,” it is my understanding that this number includes any investment in a startup that has been founded or is led by a founder that identifies with any of the following groups: Woman, Black or African American, Native America, Middle Eastern/North African, South Asia, East Asian, Southeast Asian, or Pacific Islander.

Here are the rankings for the best accelerators for underrepresented founders:

Rank	Accelerator	Number of Investments	Number of Diversity Investments	Diversity Investment Rate	Exit Rate
1	Food-X	135	54	40.00%	4.17%
2	MIT delta v	129	50	38.76%	10.32%
3	Stanford StartX	333	100	30.03%	24.74%
4	Sputnik ATX	107	30	28.04%	2.90%
5	Starve Ups	142	39	27.46%	18.57%
6	Boomtown Accelerators	173	47	27.17%	5.10%
7	Capital Innovators	135	36	26.67%	6.56%
8	Blue Startups	120	31	25.83%	4.90%
9	Elemental Excelerator	153	39	25.49%	17.78%
10	Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA)	347	88	25.36%	11.41%
11	gener8tor	218	55	25.23%	7.07%
12	IndieBio	438	110	25.11%	1.75%
13	AlphaLab	108	27	25.00%	6.67%
14	EXPERT DOJO	268	67	25.00%	0.40%
15	MetaProp	149	36	24.16%	16.35%
16	LAUNCH	451	100	22.17%	17.34%
17	Techstars	5,464	1,130	20.68%	10.65%
18	SkyDeck Berkeley	466	89	19.10%	3.97%
19	Alchemist Accelerator	574	108	18.82%	10.42%
20	MedTech Innovator	244	43	17.62%	6.67%
21	SAP.iO	235	40	17.02%	11.87%
22	500 Global	3,016	509	16.88%	15.46%
23	REACH	110	18	16.36%	14.95%
24	Tech Wildcatters	104	17	16.35%	12.24%
25	Village Capital	325	53	16.31%	5.38%
26	SOSV	2,551	416	16.31%	4.98%
27	Founder Friendly Labs	174	27	15.52%	17.34%
28	Y Combinator	5,442	815	14.98%	11.15%
29	MassChallenge	3,035	435	14.33%	6.30%
30	AngelPad	183	26	14.21%	33.61%
31	gbeta	510	72	14.12%	2.17%
32	Google for Startups	1,438	195	13.56%	3.57%
33	Union Kitchen	120	16	13.33%	0.00%
34	HAX	541	71	13.12%	4.11%
35	IDEA: Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator	135	17	12.59%	8.33%
36	Plug and Play	1,591	191	12.01%	11.88%
37	BoomStartup	100	12	12.00%	11.22%
38	Nashville Entrepreneur Center	101	12	11.88%	0.99%
39	AcceliCITY powered by Leading Cities	227	23	10.13%	4.74%
40	Newchip	395	40	10.13%	1.27%
41	Microsoft Accelerator	234	20	8.55%	20.83%
42	Plug and Play Insurtech	102	7	6.86%	17.82%
43	Google Launchpad Accelerator	117	7	5.98%	20.51%
44	Desafia	103	3	2.91%	6.86%

Google Launchpad Accelerator (43rd out of 44) and Microsoft Accelerator (41st) had among the lowest diversity investment rates in our research.

The most popular accelerators like 500 Startups (22nd), SOSV (26th), Y Combinator (28th), MassChallenge (29th), and Plug and Play (36th) rank toward the bottom of this list as well. Out of the biggest accelerators, only Techstars ranked toward the top at 17th place.

Smaller programs definitely seem to invest in underrepresented founders at higher rates. Accelerators such as FoodX (1st) and Starve Ups (5th) as well as university-affiliated programs such as MIT delta v (2nd) and Stanford’s StartX (3rd) have the highest diversity investment rate, according to our research.

Those accelerators that seem most promising have both a high diversity investment rate and exit rate (rate at which portfolio companies are acquired or reach an IPO), such as StartX, Starve Ups, and Elemental Excelerator.

Best Small Accelerators for Women and Underrepresented Founders

Bigger isn’t better when it comes to startup accelerators, as we have indicated before. In the case of women and ethnic minority founders, the same is true.

For accelerators that have between 10 and 100 investments, top programs have diversity investment rates of fifty or more percent!

Rank	Accelerator	Number of Investments	Number of Diversity Investments	Diversity Investment Rate	Exit Rate	Portfolio Companies
1	Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab	36	23	63.89%	0.00%	36
2	Matter	28	14	50.00%	3.70%	27
3	ZeroTo510	40	20	50.00%	0.00%	40
4	Visible Hands	16	8	50.00%	0.00%	16
5	Start Co.	26	12	46.15%	0.00%	22
6	Conscious Venture Lab	26	11	42.31%	0.00%	26
7	Disney Accelerator	58	22	37.93%	18.00%	50
8	HeartX	16	6	37.50%	6.25%	16
9	Cedars-Sinai Accelerator	68	25	36.76%	10.00%	60
10	Iowa Startup Accelerator	17	6	35.29%	5.88%	17
11	Cleveland Avenue	41	14	34.15%	5.88%	34
12	43North	62	21	33.87%	8.62%	58
13	AlphaLab Health	15	5	33.33%	0.00%	15
14	Lighthouse Labs RVA	61	18	29.51%	4.92%	61
15	Lair East Labs	31	9	29.03%	3.57%	28
16	MuckerLab	14	4	28.57%	7.14%	14
17	Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator	11	3	27.27%	30.00%	10
18	AlphaLab Gear	16	4	25.00%	12.50%	16
19	FoodFutureCo	42	10	23.81%	0.00%	36
20	Allston Venture Fund	21	5	23.81%	0.00%	20
21	NGA Accelerator	17	4	23.53%	0.00%	17
22	Illumina Accelerator	40	9	22.50%	2.56%	39
23	Leap Venture Studio	24	5	20.83%	4.35%	23
24	AFWERX	20	4	20.00%	0.00%	14
25	Global Insurance Accelerator	61	11	18.03%	1.75%	57
26	DivInc	29	5	17.24%	0.00%	29
27	NMotion	70	12	17.14%	6.56%	61
28	PharmStars	33	5	15.15%	3.03%	33
29	Exponential Impact	20	3	15.00%	0.00%	19
30	Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech	21	3	14.29%	0.00%	21
31	Techstars Alabama Power EnergyTech Accelerator	14	2	14.29%	0.00%	14
32	MARL 5G Accelerator	45	6	13.33%	0.00%	45
33	CREATE-X	33	4	12.12%	0.00%	31
34	Joules Accelerator	19	2	10.53%	15.79%	19
35	Luminate	29	3	10.34%	0.00%	25
36	Open World Accelerator	11	1	9.09%	0.00%	11
37	Mana Up	12	1	8.33%	0.00%	12
38	ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator 2.0	13	1	7.69%	8.33%	12
39	SKU	26	2	7.69%	0.00%	26
40	ConsenSys Mesh	15	1	6.67%	0.00%	13
41	Draper Goren Holm	16	1	6.25%	0.00%	14
42	Starburst Accelerator	68	4	5.88%	5.97%	67
43	COLABORATIVOx	17	1	5.88%	5.88%	17
44	Hult Prize Foundation	20	1	5.00%	0.00%	16
45	Upekkha Value SaaS Accelerator	23	1	4.35%	0.00%	23
46	TinySeed	71	1	1.41%	1.41%	71

What does this mean for female or underrepresented founders?

Key Take-away

It’s important to look beyond the usual suspects. The best accelerators for women and underrepresented founders are often smaller programs, such as co.lab, that have both a high exit rate and diversity investment rate.

About Beta Boom

Beta Boom is a pre-seed fund investing $150-350K in software startups building the future for women and multicultural consumers. Plus, we help our startups succeed with daily support from our growth team.

More Resources: Top Pre-Seed Funds | Top Funds Investing in Women | Top Black-Led Funds | Top Latinx-Led Funds | Top Angel Investors | Best Startup Accelerators | Top FinTech Seed Funds | Top Health Tech Seed Funds | Angel Investor Guide