My state of the union on accelerators

Thanks to for starting this conversation on accelerators and sharing a great white paper. Part of these thoughts I presented to the Entrepreneurs Track aw WWW2015.

My unfiltered thoughts below.

    1) pre-acceleration - think this is the logical way to go as people go earlier in deal flow. EF is doing that, as well as an Italian experiment I've heard. - However, it still doesn't preclude that accelerators will still be around and/or increase. Reason is that accelerators are just simply better at doing early stage investing - at being to select, coach and mentor, and establishing network effects for alumni.
    2) Shift towards vertical accelerators - true. There are specific domains that need verticals, because entrepreneurs need partners to break into domains. Our Barclays partnership is one for Fintech. - This also has to happen because the business model needs to evolve re. point 5 below. Cash flow becomes much more important with accelerators and partnership helps.
    3) changing relationship between corporate and accelerators - true - and has to happen irregardless. It's just a natural state of evolution between incumbents and innovators.
    4) Consolidation - Not sure how this'll work. Consolidation is an easy word to throw around, but re. my point 1 on why accelerators are better at early stage investing, I'm not sure where consolidation really helps other than establish alumni network effects. And I find it conceptually difficult to understand how this will be possible, ie. have collegiate/MBA programs every consolidated well?
    5) Business model needs to evolve - Yes true. see rebuttal from point 2