Incubator start-ups outgunning co-working counterparts: Study

Australian start-ups located in incubators raise an average $175,379 more in funding than those located in co-working spaces, according to new data from Perth-based research start-up Floq, published by From Little Things.

Floq, founded by Jonah Cacioppe and Mike Kruger, is a web application that allows users to gather feedback via surveys, ratings and polls.

In May last year, Floq released the first set of findings from its Startup Nation survey, which is ongoing. It initially attracted responses from more than 150 Australian start-ups.

New survey data, which encapsulates almost 400 start-ups, shows the ability of a start-up to raise funds can be influenced by where they work.

For example, start-ups located in an incubator raise an average of $220,008, compared with $44,811 for those in a co-working space.

But of the start-ups surveyed, 57% don’t share an office space. For those that do share an office, co-working spaces appear to be the most popular.

More than 20% said they work from spaces such as Fishburners or the York Butter Factory, while 13% work in a shared office space.

Approximately 9% of the start-ups surveyed work out of incubators such as BlueChilli or Ignition Labs.

According to Floq’s findings, start-ups can also increase their chances of raising investment by increasing the number of mentors, advisors or investors in their support network.

For each new mentor, advisor or investor, start-ups raise an additional $69,059, the survey shows.

“The median number of mentors, advisors and investors for a startup – those that hadn’t raised money — is seven,” Kruger told FLT.

Encouragingly, more than half of the start-ups surveyed collect some revenue, although 56% of those start-ups are earning less than $100,000 a year.

In the past year, more than a quarter of start-ups made less than $5,000.

The survey shows 30% of start-ups are working on a web application, while 20% are working on a website and 19% are working on a mobile application. Only 10% of respondents said they are building “stuff you can touch”.

Meanwhile, more than 70% of the founders surveyed are aged over 30, while approximately 17% are female.