When truly assessing the success factors for funders, many accelerators have chosen not to take equity. This improves the quality of applicants, and allows the programme to focus on what matters to everyone. In the case of Microsoft, the benefits come from participating with the startups; key employees learning by helping, visibility of coming trends, helping their corporate customers be more innovative through startup intros, and helping more startups use their products. These benefits are multiplied substantially by the increased competition to enter the accelerator since it doesn't cost equity.