Accelerator Impact Reports: Metrics, Sources & a Template

An impact report rarely has one audience. As the Kauffman Foundation’s brief on measuring accelerator performance puts it, founders, program managers, investors and policymakers each care about different outcomes. In practice:

• Government and ecosystem sponsors: jobs, local economic activity, follow-on investment into the region.
• LPs and investors: follow-on rounds, valuations where disclosed, and exits.
• Corporate sponsors: partnerships, pilots and customers that came out of the program.
• Your own team: which cohorts and which kinds of companies did best, to shape the next intake.

Agree with each sponsor which handful of outcomes they need before the reporting period starts. A report that answers everyone’s questions in one undifferentiated list answers no one’s well.

Outputs are what the program did: applications received, companies selected, sessions run, demo-day attendance. Outcomes are what happened to the companies: survival, follow-on capital, growth, exits. Sponsors fund outputs but judge you on outcomes, so lead with outcomes and keep outputs to a short appendix.

Report outcomes as change over a stated period (“raised in the 12 months after the program”), not as a lifetime total that mixes old and new cohorts.

The useful distinction is not just what to measure but how you can evidence it. Mark every metric as publicly verifiable or founder-reported, and keep the two apart in the report.

• Survival. Still operating, quiet, acquired or closed. Publicly verifiable for most companies.
• Follow-on capital. Rounds raised after the program: total, per cohort, and the share of companies that raised. Publicly verifiable for disclosed rounds.
• Hiring and team growth. Announced hiring, senior hires and leadership changes are public; exact headcount usually is not.
• New markets. Offices, registrations and launches in new countries. Publicly verifiable, and worth flagging separately when they cross the India–Gulf corridor.
• Partnerships and customers. Publicly verifiable when announced; many are not.
• Exits and closures. Acquisitions, listings and shutdowns. Verify closures with particular care before reporting them.
• Revenue and profitability. Founder-reported for most private companies. Use it, but label it.

1. Company announcements. Press releases, company blogs and founder posts are the primary source for most launches, hires and partnerships.
2. Regulatory filings. In India, company filings with the Registrar of Companies often show share allotments, and so funding, before or without a press release. In Gulf free zones, public registers generally confirm that a company exists and where it is registered, but funding usually surfaces only through announcements and coverage.
3. News coverage. Startup and business outlets in India and the Gulf report rounds, leadership changes and expansions. Prefer the outlet closest to the primary source, and when two outlets disagree on a figure, check the company’s own announcement before using either.
4. Founder input. For the figures only founders know. Ask for less, less often, and say what you will use it for.

Whatever the source, keep the link. A figure your sponsor can click through to is worth more than a larger figure they have to take on trust.

Surveys work while companies are in the program and founders feel accountable to it. After demo day, replies get fewer, slower and more selective: the companies doing well answer, the struggling ones go quiet, and the picture skews positive without anyone intending it. Self-reported figures are also hard to defend when a sponsor asks where a number came from.

The fix is not to drop surveys but to stop relying on them for what is already public. Track public events continuously, and keep founder questions for the short list of figures you cannot get any other way.

• Government sponsors are common. Many programs in both regions are backed by state startup missions, government-linked funds or free-zone authorities, and their reporting asks lean towards jobs, investment into the region and companies set up locally.
• Cross-border moves are an outcome in their own right. Alumni opening in the UAE or Saudi Arabia, or raising Gulf capital, rarely reach the outlets a program team reads day to day. Track and report them separately.
• Currencies need one rule. Rounds arrive in rupees, dirhams, riyals and dollars. Report totals in one currency, state the conversion rate and date, and keep the original amount next to each figure.
• Disclosure differs. Indian filings make some rounds visible that were never announced; in the Gulf, an unannounced round may simply not be visible yet. Say so in your method note rather than implying a complete count.

Use the same structure every period, so a sponsor can set one report beside the last.

1. Summary. Three to five headline outcomes for the period, each with its source.
2. Portfolio at a glance. Companies tracked, and how many are active, quiet, acquired or closed.
3. Capital. Follow-on raised in the period, by cohort, with the share of companies that raised.
4. Growth signals. Hiring, new markets and partnerships, one line per event.
5. Exits and closures. Each confirmed against a primary source.
6. Cross-border activity. India–Gulf moves and Gulf capital raised, listed separately.
7. Spotlights. Two or three short company stories that show what the numbers mean.
8. Method and sources. The period covered, how companies were tracked, which figures are confirmed from public sources and which are self-reported, and the currency rule.

• Mixing confirmed and self-reported figures in one total without labels.
• Reporting outputs (sessions run, mentors engaged) as if they were outcomes.
• Counting a round that was announced as “in talks” as if it had closed.
• Adding up amounts in different currencies without a stated conversion.
• Reporting a shutdown on a single unconfirmed signal.
• Claiming the program caused every outcome. Strong programs select strong companies; describe what happened, and be careful about why.

The structure above is durable. The work is not: someone has to watch every company, every week, and keep the source behind every line. That is what Newzchain for Accelerators does: it tracks your cohorts and alumni across public sources and India–Gulf coverage, has a person confirm funding, acquisitions and shutdowns, and delivers digests and impact briefs in the outline above. If your companies are moving between India and the Gulf, our guides on India–Gulf expansion and raising from Gulf investors cover what your founders face there.