For accelerators, incubators and programme operators
A cohort can improve. The report needs to show where.
Accelerator reports often include applications, acceptances, mentor hours and funds raised by alumni. Those figures are useful context, but they do not by themselves show the commercial capability of each company or how it changed during the programme.
An intake and exit measurement adds a company-level view of movement. When participating programmes use the same published instrument, results share a common basis within the method version and implementation rules.
The problem
Two programmes. Identical reports.
Applications, acceptances, mentor hours and funds raised. On the activity figures shown here, the two cohorts look the same to a sponsor.
The underlying movement is different: one cohort has more companies with a higher exit position than the other. The activity report does not show that difference. A sponsor can therefore see delivery, but not the company-level movement associated with it.
Measure at intake and again at exit and that difference becomes available for review.
An illustration of why identical reporting hides a real difference, not observed data.
The three moments it is useful
Which applicants
Applications are already read through the deck and founder. A commercial capability result adds a consistent second view across applicants without replacing your existing selection process. The instrument is designed to take about eight minutes.
Where to spend the hours
Mentor time is scarce. A result can indicate whether a company needs work on proposition, process or another part of the commercial system, helping the programme decide where a mentor conversation may be useful. Two companies with the same headline score may still need different support.
What changed at follow-up
Movement per company between two dates, using a published instrument. It adds to, rather than replaces, surveys, testimonials and financial outcomes, which answer different questions.
Who needs the evidence
The people funding the programme need more than activity figures.
Corporate sponsors, banks, combined authorities, university partners and your own investors may all ask some version of the same question: what changed for the companies in the programme? Attendance and delivery figures do not answer that question on their own.
An accelerator that reports company movement on a published instrument is making a more inspectable claim than one that reports activity alone. The instrument measures the companies, not the programme itself.
- Cohort composition described by commercial capability alongside sector and stage
- The primary constraint indicated per company, with recorded support or action
- Movement between intake and exit, per company
- A common published instrument with the method version stated, giving sponsors a shared reference point
- Comparison with the programme's own cohorts when the same method version and implementation rules are used
The tender argument
Accelerators often compete for the same regional or national funding. Bids commonly describe the curriculum, mentor network and demo day. Those details explain delivery; they do not, by themselves, evidence company-level movement.
A bid that says we measure every company at intake and exit on a published standard, and here is last cohort's movement is answering a question the others are not.
The same applies when a commissioner asks for outcome evidence. A delivery partner that can show an intake position, an exit position and the method used has evidence to present; a partner promising to design a measure has a different level of readiness.
The line you report against
Your last cohort, measured on the same basis.
Compare cohorts over time using the same instrument, method version and matched-pair logic. Growth Score supports comparison with your own previous cohorts. It does not create provider league tables or compare one provider's cohort with another's.
When a cohort is too small for a reliable headline comparison, the pattern of cell movement may still support curriculum review. If Process and Repeatability shift in two consecutive cohorts while People does not, that may indicate where the curriculum is addressing a need and where it is not.
The report states when a difference cannot be distinguished reliably from noise; it does not present that difference as evidence that one year was better.
The boundaries
- It does not replace your selection process. Use it as one consistent input alongside your existing review
- It does not score the programme. It measures participating companies. Any programme-level reading comes from their reported movement, and Growth Score does not publish provider league tables
- It does not replace mentors. It indicates a support category; the programme decides who provides it, usually through its own network
- It does not establish causation. The report records the action or intervention that preceded the next measurement. It does not prove that the programme caused the movement
First engagement
One cohort, ninety days, a fixed fee of GBP 9,000 credited in full if you continue. Intake measurement, exit measurement, and a report you can put in front of whoever funds the programme.
Companies are never charged and keep their own results permanently, whether or not they finish the programme.