As explained in The Rise of Startup Studios, a white paper published by The Global Startup Studio Network in 2019, the term “startup studio” covers a wide range of actors and operating principles. To be considered a startup studio, we set an arbitrary threshold of a minimum of 6 months of highly active assistance to each startup. Anything below the threshold can be broadly covered by the term “accelerator”.

via @allbombs, from the [[eFounders]] blog: Sidecar funds, corporate vehicles, club deals: how do startup studios get financed?.

The 2 core differentiation criteria between different types of startup studios are:

• Are the ideas born “internally” and subsequently pitched to entrepreneurs who’ll join the venture or does the studio consider “external” ideas by partnering with or finding inspiration from an existing team of entrepreneurs with their own idea.
• Are the created ventures "independent by default” from the studio or are the ventures dependent of the studio’s operational resources, aka the “integrated model”.

This gives us 4 quadrants:

Integrated

• Internal Ideas, aka Platform Builders. Examples: [[Enhance Ventures]], [[Polymath Ventures]]
• External Ideas, aka Execution Engines. Examples: [[Rocket Internet]]

Independent

• Internal Ideas, aka Crazy Creatives. Examples: [[eFounders]], [[High Alpha]], [[PSL]]
• External Ideas, aka Service Experts. Examples: [[Coplex]], [[Prehype]]