Also called “startup factory”, “company builder” or “venture builder”, the startup studio seems to have the wind in its sails. Often confused with an investment fund or an accelerator, its model is however quite different.
The startup studio: definition
Briefly, the startup studio is a company that creates startups repeatedly, by providing human and
financial capital. It provides everything needed for an idea to come to life, in particular the combination of human and financial resources. They are built around a multidisciplinary and operational support for the making of ideas, the creation of startups and the development of their teams.
The startup studio has several main objectives:
– To create “quality” startups, i.e. to generate high levels of ownership of well-valued assets
– Reduce the cost of resources used through synergies
– Reduce the risk of failure and make it less costly
– Produce quality startups on the assembly line
– Secondary objective compared to the others, but most startup studios mention a regular number of creations of 3 to 5 startups per year
The history of the startup studio
Idealab, created in 1996 in the United States, is considered as the first startup studio. But it is in 2007 with the creation of Betaworks that the first startup studio adapted to the so-called “digital” era was born. The same year, Rocket Internet contributes to the diffusion of the model. The startup studio model spreads in France in 2011 with the birth of eFounders.
The different models of startup studios
The startup studio offers a human and financial investment, multidisciplinary internal teams and has one or several privileged sectors. But there are different variations of this startup studio model. They are as follow:
– “Guided” startup studios. These startup studios have strong links with corporations or
laboratories for the emergence of ideas.
– “Unstructured” startup studios. These startup studios have no specialization, the ideas are
varied, and the resources are mainly internal.
– Startup studios “agencies”. The contribution is essentially human and expert, often (partially)
invoiced.
– “Financial” startup studios. The contribution is essentially financial.
To go further on the subject of startup studios, read our white paper.
