Editing Business incubator (section)

==History==
[[File:Bramble's views Toledo, Ohio - diamond anniversary 1837-1912 - DPLA - a4b983d79cfcfaaf7368d108fe048f73 (page 29) (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|"THE FACTORIES BUILDING. Toledo's new $500,000 "Infant Industries Incubator." from "Bramble's views [[Toledo, Ohio]] : diamond anniversary 1837-1912"]]
The first business incubator was the Batavia Industrial Center, which opened in 1959 in [[Batavia, New York]].<ref name="Peters">{{cite news |last1=Peters |first1=Justin |title=How a 1950s Egg Farm Hatched the Modern Startup Incubator |url=https://www.wired.com/story/how-a-1950s-egg-farm-hatched-the-modern-startup-incubator/ |work=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |date=June 28, 2017}}</ref>  Two years earlier, [[Massey Ferguson|Massey-Harris]] had announced the closure of its Batavia farm machinery factory, resulting in a giant vacant building and a local unemployment rate of 18 percent.<ref name="Peters" />  The Mancuso family, the dominant business family in that area of [[Western New York]], was desperate to resuscitate the regional economy, whose imminent collapse threatened to bring down their various business enterprises.<ref name="Peters" />  They bought the former [[Combine harvester|harvester]] factory and placed Joseph Mancuso in charge of finding commercial tenants.<ref name="Peters" /> It soon became clear that large corporations preferred to build new factories from scratch rather than shoehorn them into someone else's 80-year-old building, thereby forcing Mancuso to subdivide the vast space and lease smaller spaces to smaller tenants.<ref name="Peters" />  

In Mancuso's frantic search for tenants, he offered creative incentives to anyone willing to sign a lease, such as "short-term leases, shared office supplies and equipment, business advice, and secretarial services", as well as assistance with linking up with local banks to secure financing.<ref name="Peters" />  One tenant was a nearby chicken hatchery in need of space to house additional chicken coops, which explains the origin of the term "business incubator".<ref name="Peters" />  In 1963, while giving a tour to a reporter of the various tenants in the Batavia Industrial Center, Mancuso pointed out the coops and remarked, "These guys are incubating chickens...I guess we’re incubating businesses".<ref name="Peters" />

Business incubation expanded across the U.S. in the 1980s and spread to the [[UK]] and Europe through various related forms (e.g. innovation centres, pépinières d'entreprises, technopoles/science parks).

The U.S.-based International Business Innovation Association estimates that there are about 7,000 incubators worldwide. A study funded by the European Commission in 2002 identified around 900 incubation environments in Western Europe.<ref>Centre for Strategy and Evaluation Services, "Benchmarking of Business Incubators." Brussels: European Commission Enterprise Directorate General, 2002.</ref> As of October 2006, there were more than 1,400 incubators in North America, up from only 12 in 1980. Her Majesty's Treasury identified around 25 incubation environments in the UK in 1997; by 2005, UKBI identified around 270 incubation environments across the country. In 2005 alone, North American incubation programs assisted more than 27,000 companies that provided employment for more than 100,000 workers and generated annual revenues of $17 billion.<ref name="knopp2006">{{cite web|url=https://www.nbia.org/resource_library/review_archive/0807_02a.php|title=2006 State of the Business Incubation Industry|year=2007|publisher=National Business Incubation Association|location=Athens, Ohio|author=Linda Knopp|access-date=2015-05-26|archive-date=2013-09-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130908225345/http://nbia.org/resource_library/review_archive/0807_02a.php|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Incubation activity has not been limited to developed countries; incubation environments are now being implemented in developing countries and raising interest for financial support from organizations such as [[United Nations Industrial Development Organization|UNIDO]] and the [[World Bank]].

The first high-tech incubator located in [[Silicon Valley]] was Catalyst Technologies started by [[Nolan Bushnell]] after he left [[Atari]]. "My idea was that I would fund [the businesses] with a key," says Bushnell. "And the key would fit a lock in a building. In the building would be a desk and chair, and down the hall would be a Xerox machine. They would sign their name 35 times and the company would be incorporated." All the details would be handled: "They'd have a health care plan, their payroll system would be in place, and the books would be set up. So in 15 minutes, they would be in business working on the project."<ref>{{cite web |title=The Untold Story of Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell's Visionary 1980s Tech Incubator |url=https://www.fastcompany.com/3068135/the-untold-story-of-atari-founder-nolan-bushnells-visionary-1980s-tech-incubator |first=Benj |last=Edwards |publisher=[[Fast Company]] |date=February 17, 2017 |access-date=December 22, 2020}}</ref>