Supporting SME start-up in Slovakia by means of business incubators

Business incubators began in the 1960s and really took off in the late 1990s as support for start up companies who need advice and venture capital to get their ideas off the ground. The role of business incubators is to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and managed by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts. The main aim of the article is to present the role of incubators as a mean of supporting small and medium enterprises start-up in Slovakia. The article is divided into two parts. In the first part is presented the core of incubators, incubator types and goals. In the second part we present building of business incubators in Slovakia and their role as a mean to help to start the entrepreneurship as well as to help to support technologically oriented SME in Slovakia. The paper was elaborated as a part of VEGA project 1/0654/11 “Innovative small and medium enterprises as a part of knowledge based economy in Slovakia”.