A Literature Review about Technology Startups Ecosystems

There is a global interest in encouraging startups companies because of the expected economic growth in the regions where these startups are located. However, startups are not individual companies, they live in an ecosystem that includes other startups, universities, incubators, investors, among other elements. Thus, understanding the components and the relationships that exist among the elements of a startup ecosystem enables decision making about how best to encourage this ecosystem. This study describes, through a critical review of the literature, a holistic view of the elements that make up a technology startup ecosystem. This work was guided by a literature review of 20 selected works through a process of snowball sampling. The main result is a conceptual framework with the elements that make up a startup ecosystem and their relationships. These are the elements that influence the ecosystem, although, in some cases, there is no consensus in the literature about whether this influence is positive or negative. Thus, the proposed framework identifies factors that have been extensively studied in the literature and, more importantly, other factors that deserve further exploration.