Utah-Based BoomStartup Ranked 12th Best Accelerator in United States

To be recognized on a list that includes Y Combinator and TechStars is a major achievement for the Utah-based accelerator.

In a presentation at South By Southwest yesterday, as first reported in an article in TechCrunch, Professor Yael Hochberg released the results of a survey she and her colleague, Professor Susan Cohen, conducted to determine the top 15 accelerators in the United States.

According to Hochberg and Cohen’s research, BoomStartup is the 12th best accelerator in the country. To be recognized on a list that includes Y Combinator and TechStars is a major achievement for the Utah-based accelerator. BoomStartup is currently accepting applications for its Summer 2014 program.

To come up with their list of the 15 best accelerators in the country, the two professors relied upon their own research and data from CrunchBase. At the time of this publishing, their full research report was not available online. Hochberg did send out a tweet yesterday saying it would be published today. We will update this story when it becomes available.

For now, here’s how TechCrunch broke down Hochberg and Cohen’s rankings:

To be included in the rankings, accelerators needed to have graduated at least one cohort by 2013, be based in the U.S. and have at least 10 graduates in their class.

Hochberg measured the accelerators based on the valuations their portfolio companies achieved in the years after graduation; the number of exits an accelerator has had; the ability of companies to receive additional financing after they left an accelerator program; the percentage of an accelerator’s portfolio that was still in operation; the opinion venture investors have of the accelerator program; and finally the opinion that graduating entrepreneurs had of their experience.

Two years out from graduation, the valuation of all portfolio companies was bout $5 million and the average valuation of a priced round or exit was $11 million. Both of those numbers are significantly lower than the average valuation across all portfolio companies in accelerators — $17 million. And the average valuation of all portfolio companies on a priced round or exit was $29 million.

Another key metric is follow-on financing. Roughly 59.3 percent of all companies in accelerator programs have gone on to raise follow-on financing. Across portfolios, the average raise was $1.8 million through either internal or external rounds and $2.8 million for companies that just raised outside funding.

Here’s the full list:

1.Y Combinator (Gold)

2.TechStars (Gold)

3.AngelPad (Gold)

4.Launchpad LA (Silver)

5.MuckerLab (Silver)

6.AlphaLab (Silver)

7.Capital Innovators (Silver)

8.Tech Wildcatters (Silver)

9.Surge Accelerator (Silver)

10.The Brandery (Silver)

11.Betaspring (Bronze)