Socialized Incubator for Startup Companies: A New Paradigm to Construct Multilayer Industrial Ecosystem under the Context of Social Manufacturing

An incubator is a kind of public or private organization that can provide multidimensional support to startup companies in exchange for profit or stake sharing. To date, huge numbers of incubators have been established all over the world, and many successful companies have been incubated by them. However, most of the existing incubators are more focused on incubating the target startup companies and pay relatively less attention to promoting the establishment of the supply chain networks and the ecosystems for the startup companies. In this regard, a new kind of socialized incubator model is established. Based on a kind of "Service-Product-Ecosystem"oriented configuration/operation mechanism, the socialized incubator can provide multidimension production services and value-added services during the entire incubation life-cycle of startup companies, transfer startup companies into ready-for-sold products, and construct multilayer vertical industrial ecosystems for the startup companies using socialized manufacturing resources. The socialized incubator model is verified through a case study on incubating a real startup company.