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Entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs), such as incubators and accelerators, have rapidly become integral to modern entrepreneurial ecosystems. This study investigates how organizational and contextual factors affect the performance of technology startups accelerated under the European Space Agency’s BIC program from 2005 to 2025. Utilizing negative binomial regression models on a dataset of 1326 European New Space startups, we examine the roles of ESO geographical location, cohort density, and institutional experience in shaping startup outcomes. Our findings indicate that: ESO geographical location significantly shapes startup employment size; accumulated ESO institutional experience is a robust predictor of startup employment growth; and cohort characteristics show secondary effects. Grounded in the Resource-Based View, these insights enhance our understanding of the value and effectiveness of ESOs in technology-intensive sectors, particularly the New Space industry.
Hernando-Tomé et al. (Wed,) studied this question.