[11] The first seed accelerator was Y Combinator, started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2005, and then later moved to Silicon Valley by Paul Graham.
[3] It was followed by TechStars (in 2006), Seedcamp (in 2007), AngelPad (in 2010), Startupbootcamp (in 2010), Tech Wildcatters (in 2011), several accelerators of SOSV, Boomtown Boulder (in 2014) and Antler (in 2017).
[12] In Europe, the first accelerator program was started by Accelerace in 2009 in Denmark (strongly subsidised by the Danish government) followed shortly after by Startup Wise Guys in 2012 in Estonia.
[14] Since 2010 there has been a substantial growth of Corporate Accelerator programs, which are sponsored by established organizations but follow similar principles.
However, studies using regression discontinuity design show that accelerators can indeed have impact over and above their selection effect, and may also have wider ecosystem spillovers (although this does not necessarily apply to every program).