Accelerators Don’t Always Boost Women Entrepreneurs
Around the world, startup accelerators have become a favored policy tool to reduce gender inequality in entrepreneurship. From Silicon Valley to sub-Saharan Africa, these intensive programs promise mentorship, networks and funding, resources that women entrepreneurs have historically struggled to access. The logic seems straightforward: if women face structural barriers, structured support should help level the playing field.
But what if that support works only in some places—and actually backfires in others? This uncomfortable question sits at the center of a new study by Nilanjana Dutt (Bocconi University, Department of Management and Technology & ICRIOS), together with Sarah Kaplan (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto) published in the Strategic Management Journal, which takes a hard look at social innovation accelerator programs and their real effects on women-led ventures across different countries.
The results challenge one-size-fits-all thinking in entrepreneurship policy—and suggest that good intentions, on their own, are not enough.
A closer look at accelerators and gender
Unlike most prior studies—focused on high-tech, male-dominated accelerators—the authors turn their attention to social innovation, a domain that tends to attract more women founders. Using data from 1,417 ventures applying to 33 accelerator programs in 65 countries, the study compares startups that were accepted into accelerators with those that applied but were rejected. Crucially, the researchers track financial performance one year later, allowing them to isolate the association between participation and outcomes.
At first glance, accelerators seem to work. Participation is associated with higher revenues across the board. But once the authors disaggregate the data by gender and institutional context, that apparent success fractures into sharply diverging trajectories for women. As Nilanjana Dutt puts it, “Unexpectedly, women-led ventures did not appear to benefit to the same extent as men-led ventures, indicating wide heterogeneity in the sample.”
When context makes all the difference
The study finds that women-led ventures benefit from accelerators only in more gender-egalitarian countries. In these environments, participation is associated with higher post-program revenues, especially when the accelerator explicitly focuses on supporting women.
As the authors write, “in more gender-egalitarian countries, women-led ventures performed better than peers after participating, especially in programs aiming to support women.”
The pattern flips, however, in less egalitarian contexts. There, women founders who join accelerators—even women-focused ones—see no improvement, or even worse outcomes, compared to women who were rejected. The paper puts it bluntly: “participation offered negative or no such advantages even in gender supportive programs.”
In other words, the places where women face the steepest barriers are often the places where accelerators help them the least.
Why “women-focused” programs can backfire
One of the study’s most counterintuitive findings concerns accelerators designed specifically to empower women. In more egalitarian countries, these programs deliver strong results. In less egalitarian ones, they can unintentionally do harm. According to the authors, “well-intended interventions to advance women entrepreneurs are context-dependent and may sometimes reinforce the very disparities they intended to diminish.” Why might this happen?
Drawing on interviews with accelerator managers and detailed program data, the researchers suggest several mechanisms. In some settings, women’s empowerment programs may raise expectations without changing the surrounding ecosystem, leaving founders better trained but still blocked by biased investors, restrictive norms, or weak institutions. In others, programs may replicate male-oriented startup cultures, emphasizing pitching styles, networking rituals, or competitive behaviors that disadvantage women rather than support them.
Selection matters as much as support
The study also uncovers a second paradox. Women-led ventures are less likely to be selected into accelerators than men-led ones—and this is particularly true in more gender-egalitarian countries and in women-focused programs. This raises an uncomfortable possibility. Accelerators may be filtering women more harshly, or selecting in ways that do not align with who actually benefits from participation. As the authors note, “the lack of overall evidence of a disproportionate benefit for women-led ventures masks important variation linked to institutional environment and program design.” In short, who gets in and where may matter as much as what the program offers.
Rethinking acceleration for women entrepreneurs
Accelerators, then, are not a universal fix for gender inequality. Their impact depends on how they interact with local norms, institutions, and markets. For women entrepreneurs themselves, joining an accelerator can be a powerful catalyst, but only under the right conditions. Understanding the broader environment may be just as important as evaluating the program’s curriculum or mentor list.
At the end of the day, structural problems require structural solutions. Without them, even the most well-meaning interventions risk accelerating in the wrong direction.
