Having worked most of my life in the German Mittelstand, unless the term has a drastically different meaning in the US a 'Mittelstand accelerator' is a complete oxymoron. The entire point is to not accelerate.
The idea of Mittelstand business is to be conservative, low in debt, turn a profit, keep a company private, usually under multi-generational family control and from the very beginning make decisions for the long term, and keep employees around for life.
Software companies that come to mind that are like this are say, IntelliJ or Valve maybe, not startups. There's nothing to IPO, there's usually not that much interest in outside money, so how does this square with the VC industry?
The idea of Mittelstand business is to be conservative, low in debt, turn a profit, keep a company private, usually under multi-generational family control and from the very beginning make decisions for the long term, and keep employees around for life.
Software companies that come to mind that are like this are say, IntelliJ or Valve maybe, not startups. There's nothing to IPO, there's usually not that much interest in outside money, so how does this square with the VC industry?