Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship: Business Incubation in a Danish Context

In 2015, the Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship (CSE), the largest business incubator in Denmark, was admitting 100–125 new start-ups each year and attracting external funding of US$33 million from both public and private sources—all with an annual budget of US$435,000, funded exclusively by the Copenhagen Business School. Like most business incubators, CSE worked to provide entrepreneurs with training, mentorship, and investors, and to enhance their visibility in the market. It required all admitted start-ups to participate in a screening/selection tool and a set of incubation activities over three specific stages. The school measured success in terms of the number of incubator participants who had both a business customer and a sustainable business model at the end of a nine-month incubation period. In 2015, CSE's success rate was 53 per cent. At this point, CSE's leaders recognized a need to question how they measured the benefits of the program. How should the 53 per cent success rate be compared to the Copenhagen Business School's investment? What changes could the CSE leadership make to create more value for Danish society?