“Maybe some things got a little wobbly,” says Techstars CEO addressing criticism about its corporate culture

The CEO and co-founder of Techstars, the well-known US startup accelerator which has backed thousands of startups, has admitted that “maybe things got a little wobbly” as he addresses criticism over its corporate culture.

David Cohen was speaking on the Tech.eu podcast, in an episode in which he also discusses key findings of Techstar’s latest State of Innovation survey.

The findings include that 30 per cent of founders want their startups to remain private while just 15 per cent says their primary goal is to go public; and that nearly half of all founders have experienced anxiety in the past year.

The CEO also discusses the state of play for startups in Europe, including London coming top of Europe’s most Innovative Hubs, ahead of Paris and Berlin.

Cohen returned to his role as CEO of Techstars, which has backed the likes of drone delivery firm Zipline and AI company DataRobot and runs startup programmes across Europe, in May this year.

Cohen returned as CEO amid criticism of Techstar's corporate culture during the tenure of his predecessor as CEO Maëlle Gavet.

Employees and executives accused Gavet of fostering a tense work environment that led to employees leaving as well as Techstars having tense relationships with its corporate partners leading to high client churn, according to reporting by TechCrunch.

Addressing the criticism, Cohen said: “Some of that felt like, from my perspective, unfounded and some of that resonates and makes sense.

“I think there is clearly a stylistic difference between different CEOs and different CEOs are going to build the team around their model and their way of addressing the world. We are different people.

"Maëlle did a lot of amazing work to build infrastructure that was missing in the company. We increased a lot the number of founders we were reaching.

"I think at the same time maybe some things got a little wobbly or some of the values weren’t been felt and lived the same way that maybe the founders would feel and live them.”

Does he accept responsibility as he was chairman during this period?

Cohen said: “You could say that a lot of the things that were criticisms there were put in motion while I was still there as CEO.

“They are not necessarily just a result of the last three years and some of the strategic decisions were things were inherited by Maëlle and her team.”