What Is an ESO? A Complete Guide to Entrepreneurial Support Organizations
Key Takeaways
- An ESO (Entrepreneurial Support Organization) is any organization whose primary purpose is to help entrepreneurs start, grow, or scale their businesses. Incubators, accelerators, innovation hubs, and mentor networks are common examples.
- The term was formalized between 2014 and 2016 through research from the Kauffman Foundation, Ben Spigel's work in Edinburgh, and networks like ANDE. It has no single author.
- Colombia doubled its accelerators from 19 to 35 between 2021 and 2023, and the region has over 264 entrepreneurship support centers mapped by the Incubadoras LAT network.
- Not every organization that helps entrepreneurs qualifies as an ESO. The key criterion is that entrepreneurship support must be its reason for being, not a side activity.
- Suricata Labs has operated as an ESO since 2013, having supported over 1,200 companies across Latin America through programs with MinTIC/iNNpulsa, IDB Lab, and OEI/European Union.
Starting a business in Latin America often feels like building a house without a foundation. You have the idea, the market exists, but the support infrastructure connecting founders with capital, knowledge, and networks is missing. That infrastructure has a technical name and has been under construction for over a decade, even though most entrepreneurs have never heard the acronym.
ESOs are the organizations filling that gap. This guide explains what they are, where the concept comes from, what types exist, and why anyone involved in entrepreneurship in the region should understand how they work.
What Is an ESO?
An ESO (Entrepreneurial Support Organization) is an organization whose primary purpose is to support individuals and teams through the various stages of the entrepreneurial process. The most cited definition in academic literature comes from researchers Brian J. Bergman (Tulane University) and Jeffery S. McMullen (Indiana University), who in 2022 published a systematic review of 337 articles in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. Their definition: an ESO provides direct or indirect, material or immaterial assistance to those seeking to initiate or advance the process of creating a business.
In practical terms, an ESO can be an incubator that supports projects from the idea stage over one to two years, an accelerator that compresses that process into three to six months with intensive mentoring and seed capital, an innovation hub that provides physical space and community, or a mentor network that connects founders with experienced entrepreneurs.
The important nuance is this: not every organization that helps entrepreneurs qualifies as an ESO. A bank may offer SME loans, a university may have an entrepreneurship course, a consulting firm may advise startups. But if their primary purpose is something else (financial intermediation, education, consulting), they are not ESOs. The differentiating criterion lies in the mission: does this organization exist to support entrepreneurs, or does it do so as a secondary activity?
Where Does the Term ESO Come From?
The concept has no single inventor. It emerged from the convergence of academic research on entrepreneurship ecosystems and the practice of development organizations during the first half of the 2010s.
Two key figures laid the groundwork. Daniel Isenberg, a professor at Babson College, published his entrepreneurship ecosystem model with six domains in Harvard Business Review in 2010, one of which was "supports" (support professions, infrastructure). Brad Feld published Startup Communities in 2012, a book that became a reference for those building local ecosystems. Neither used the ESO acronym, but both described the functions these organizations fulfill.
The first documented use in a research context appeared in September 2014, when Yasuyuki Motoyama and Karren Watkins published a Kauffman Foundation study on the St. Louis, Missouri ecosystem, mapping support organizations as differentiated actors within an ecosystem for the first time.
The first formal appearance of the ESO acronym in an academic journal was Ben Spigel's article, published in July 2016 in the International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development. His study of entrepreneurship support programs in Edinburgh, Scotland, explicitly defines "entrepreneurship support organisations (ESOs)" as a critical part of ecosystems.
The field's consolidation came with Bergman and McMullen's 2022 review, which synthesized a decade of scattered research and proposed the definition and taxonomy that most of academia uses today. In the institutional sphere, networks like ANDE (Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, founded in 2009), the Kauffman Foundation, and Village Capital were the main drivers of popularizing the term among practitioners. Village Capital reports having worked with 170 ESOs across 40 countries since 2015.
What Types of ESOs Exist?
The classification depends on who you ask, but there is convergence on the fundamental types. Bergman and McMullen's review identifies five canonical forms, and institutional frameworks from ANDE and GIZ expand the spectrum considerably.
| ESO Type | Typical Duration | What It Offers | Regional Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Incubator | 1–5 years | Space, mentoring from the idea stage, access to networks | Parque del Emprendimiento (Medellín) |
| Accelerator | 3–6 months | Cohorts, curriculum, seed capital, demo day | Rockstart Latam, 500 Global |
| Science park | Permanent | Technology transfer, university-industry linkage | ParqueSoft (Colombia) |
| Hub / Coworking | Permanent | Shared space, community, organic networking | Selina Cowork, WeWork Labs |
| Mentor network / Ecosystem builder | Permanent | Connection between actors, support programs | Endeavor, ANDE |
Beyond these five forms, the real ecosystem includes government agencies such as iNNpulsa Colombia (created in 2012, having supported over 22,000 entrepreneurs and mobilized COP $1.7 trillion), business development centers operated by chambers of commerce, and international cooperation organizations running programs from IDB Lab or USAID.
GIZ's framework adds a useful dimension by classifying ESO services according to the entrepreneurship stage: in the idea phase, they offer awareness-building and access to grants; in seed, mentoring and prototyping; in startup, acceleration programs and regulatory support; and in expansion, internationalization and scaling support.
A recent finding worth mentioning: Hruskova, Mason, and Herzog's study (2023) mapped all ESOs in Glasgow and found that the perception of a "cluttered landscape" of organizations doesn't come from having too many ESOs, but from poorly understanding how they differ from one another. They look alike from the outside, but their services, audiences, and models are profoundly different.
Why Do ESOs Matter in Latin America?
Because the region has a structural gap in entrepreneurship support that no other actor is filling. The World Bank reports that over 25% of Latin American companies face credit constraints (double the OECD rate), most countries invest less than 1% of GDP in research and development, and the regional average has fewer than one researcher per thousand economically active people, compared to fifteen in leading innovation countries.
ESOs address concrete market failures that neither government, banks, nor universities solve on their own. The first is information asymmetry: entrepreneurs don't know what resources exist or how to access them. The second is coordination failure: building the necessary connections between founders, investors, regulators, and markets is impossible for an isolated entrepreneur. The third is the "missing middle" gap, that space where companies are too large for microfinance and too small for commercial banking.
Regional numbers show that the infrastructure is growing. The Incubadoras LAT network records 264 centers in Latin America and the Caribbean. ANDE has 90 members in the region. Colombia went from 19 accelerators in 2021 to 35 in 2023, according to the Colombia Tech Report. And Endeavor, probably the most recognized high-impact ESO in the region, reports that its entrepreneurs have generated over $75 billion in revenue and 4.1 million jobs globally.
But there is also a real tension: a recent article published in March 2026 by the Association of African Entrepreneurs argues that ESOs are taking on ecosystem infrastructure functions (coordination, trust-building, policy intermediation) without the funding or formal mandate to do so. That same tension applies in Latin America.
Suricata Labs as an ESO: Our Journey
Suricata Labs was born in 2013 in Bucaramanga, Colombia, when three friends started informally helping entrepreneurs interested in digital businesses. What began as a hobby became formalized once we saw the real impact on the companies we supported. In 2014 we organized the first Startup Date Bucaramanga and created the first technology entrepreneurship accelerator in eastern Colombia. Shortly after, we became allied operators of Apps.co for MinTIC and iNNpulsa, covering the Eastern and Orinoquía regions.
Since then, the work has scaled. We executed programs with IDB Lab in Buenaventura, trained 115 digital transformation advisors in El Salvador with OEI and the European Union, and participated as strategy consultants in Caribe Exponencial (Fundación Santo Domingo). In 2021, we were selected among the 30 best accelerators in Colombia by iNNpulsa and 500 Startups. Today we have supported over 1,200 companies in Colombia, El Salvador, and the Caribbean.
What defines us as an ESO rather than a traditional consulting firm is something we call "Planophobia": the collective fatigue of receiving diagnoses and plans that no one executes. Our response is to measure progress with concrete evidence, not with polished reports. For that, we developed SuricataOS, a proprietary platform that enables running support programs with granular tracking per company and cohort.
If you want to learn how we work with businesses and institutions, visit our AI strategy page or schedule a conversation.
How Is the Impact of an ESO Measured?
There is no single standard, but the global benchmark is GALI (Global Accelerator Learning Initiative), a collaboration between ANDE and Emory University that since 2015 has collected data from over 23,000 ventures across 160 countries. Its main finding: acceleration works on average. Companies that go through acceleration programs outperform their peers in revenue growth and investment received, and the effect strengthens over time.
The most widely used measurement frameworks include ANDE's "4Cs" (designed specifically to evaluate accelerators), the Lean Data approach by 60 Decibels (which measures impact from the entrepreneur's perspective, not the program's), and the IRIS+ catalog from the Global Impact Investing Network, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.
Let's be honest: measuring an ESO's impact is hard. The main methodological challenge is selection bias: ESOs tend to accept the entrepreneurs with the highest potential, which artificially inflates their success metrics. GALI has attempted to address this with control groups of rejected applicants, but the debate remains open.
Frequently Asked Questions About ESOs
Are ESO and OAE the same thing?
Yes, in practice they are used as synonyms. OAE (Organización de Apoyo al Emprendimiento) is the Spanish translation of the English term. Some Spanish-speaking organizations also use "organización de soporte emprendedor" or "organización de apoyo empresarial," but the concept is the same.
Is a chamber of commerce an ESO?
It depends. If the chamber has programs dedicated exclusively to entrepreneurship support (such as a business development center with its own staff and budget), that unit functions as an ESO. The chamber as a whole probably does not, because its primary purpose is trade representation, not entrepreneurship support.
How many ESOs are there in Latin America?
There is no complete census. The Incubadoras LAT network records 264 centers, ANDE has 90 members in the region, and the Colombia Tech Report identified 65 ESOs in Colombia alone. The real number is probably much higher when including local organizations that don't appear in international mappings.
What's the difference between an ESO and a consulting firm?
The difference lies in the mission and the model. An ESO exists to strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystem and typically operates with funding from grants, government, or donors. A consulting firm exists to deliver a service in exchange for fees. There are hybrid organizations (like Suricata Labs) that combine elements of both models, but the key criterion remains: is the primary purpose to support the entrepreneur or to capture value from the service?
Do ESOs only serve tech startups?
No. Although the literature and media coverage focus on tech startups, ESOs work with all types of ventures: agribusiness, retail, services, manufacturing, creative economy. In fact, most companies that go through ESOs in Latin America are not tech startups but SMEs in traditional sectors looking to grow or modernize.
Conclusion
ESOs are the infrastructure that connects entrepreneurs with what they need to grow. Understanding what they are, how they work, and where to find them is the first step toward no longer building alone. If you're building a business in Latin America, there's probably an ESO near you that could change your trajectory. The challenge is finding it.
Read also: How AI Is Transforming Entrepreneurship Ecosystems
Last updated: March 30, 2026
