The wildlife of Entrepreneurship

Fellow Funders used to talk about unicorns and cockroaches, two startup concepts which live together in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. As it was said, “Fellow Funders do not underestimate unicorns. However, cockroaches are preferred. FF believe that to reindustrialize Spain many cockroaches are needed”. And suddenly, in our universe, a new animal has appeared: the GAZELLES.

The last research Fellow Funders received was about the Fundación Cotec para la Innovación . This research is called Why gazelles grow? And it has drawn FF team’s attention. FF team would like to congratulate you for your astonishing work.

And you will ask yourself: what are the Gazelles?

According to the OECD, Gazelle is referred to a group of SEMs with more than 10 employees that accumulate a turnover growth of over 75% for three running years. According to the report, there are some significant differences between the gazelles and the startups:

Gazelles are characterized by being SMEs, as opposed to startups, which are usually micro enterprises.
They are young companies, but not newly created as startups are.
They are present in all types of sectors, and not necessarily in technology sectors such as startups.

However, startups and gazelles share one characteristic: INNOVATION. Gazelle companies are companies that do not have an exponential growth as a startup can have, but an increase of 75% in 3 years of its turnover is significant enough to take them into account.

Gazelle companies base their growth on innovation, not only technological, but organizational and process. Technology itself is not a sufficiently differentiating factor for an SME to be able to undertake such significant growth and transformation processes.

Some figures to understand the importance of gazelle companies:

They make up approximately 6% of all Spanish companies with more than 10 employees.
The probability of survival of these companies over time (83%) is higher than the rest of the companies (76%).
In the period 2012-2015, they were responsible for 43% of job creation in Spain.
In 80% of cases, the growth of gazelles is not at the expense of the rest of their competition but increasing the target market.
50% of gazelle companies considers that their main competitor does not belong to their own sector of activity.

Fellow Funders continue to believe that we must help reindustrialize Spain. The only way this process can be carried out is by strengthening technological, product, process and organizational innovation, among others. A great agreement is needed between public administrations, training centers, entrepreneurs, investors and entrepreneurs to promote innovation and to position Spain optimally in the new industrial revolution that it’s been witnessing.

What if it turns out that Fellow Funders, in addition to cockroaches and some unicorn cases, also like gazelles? What if some of the projects FF present to investors are gazelles instead of startups? Time will tell.

And just for you to remember… One of the key factors of maintaining adequate risk levels is to diversify your portfolio.