First: helping businesses does not avoid corruption and nepotism. - sure. However there is a higher probability of that if gov create jobs. (I have seen Sri Lankan gov create jobs just to pay salaries for friends/etc). Incubator is going to be better than that as even if gov pick someone they like, still the market decide the outcome and someone else can take place)
I think you are imagining a tautologically good incubator.
I have been disappointed watching government initiatives in New Zealand over the years. They ostensibly are there to help businesses. However they usually are wasteful and ineffective. Government departments have no insight about what factors help small businesses. Even business oriented investors (e.g. VC) often fail to understand how to drive growth, so how can we expect policy wonks to do better than that? Governments fail badly from what I have personally experienced in an incubator (government/private mix), and I can't
think of a government initiative that has helped. I have certainly experienced many negative effects of government interference. So many poor regulations that damage small businesses. Few good changes that help.
I presume there are successful government initiatives but I haven't seen any in 30 years.
