Accelerators are a recent yet rapidly growing phenomenon within entrepreneurial ecosystems. The distinctive characteristics exhibited by accelerators, relative to previous incubation models, imply that accelerators may play a different role and have a different impact on the survival rates of participating firms. In this study, we explore the relationship between participation in an accelerator program and firm survival using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with key variables related to firm survival. We analyze 38 accelerated startups from five Italian accelerators and a control group of 38 non-accelerated Italian startups. Our findings support the business accelerator literature that regards accelerators as a new and distinct generation of business incubators. Our results suggest that participation in accelerator programs on its own does not influence firm survival. However, we found a relationship between firm survival and accelerated technology-based firms that do not export and between firm survival and accelerated firms in the service sector with a small team that do not export. We conclude that factors affecting the survival of accelerated firms are different from factors affecting the survival of incubated firms, providing further evidence of the characteristics that distinguish accelerators from incubators.

加速器是企业家生态系统中最近出现但仍在迅速发展的现象。相对于以前的孵化模型，加速器表现出的独特特征意味着加速器可能扮演不同的角色，并对参与企业的生存率产生不同的影响。在这项研究中，我们使用与企业生存相关的关键变量的模糊集定性比较分析（fsQCA）探索了参与加速器计划与企业生存之间的关系。我们分析了来自五家意大利加速器的38家加速创业公司和一组38家非加速意大利的创业公司的对照组。我们的发现支持了关于商业加速器的文献，这些文献将加速器视为新一代独特的商业孵化器。我们的结果表明，单独参与加速器计划不会影响公司的生存。但是，我们发现企业生存与不出口的以技术为基础的加速型企业之间的关系，以及服务业和不出口的小型团队中的服务业与加速型企业之间的关系。我们得出结论，影响加速企业生存的因素不同于影响孵化企业生存的因素，这提供了区分加速器和孵化器的特征的进一步证据。