AbstractBackground: In their early phases, startups are challenged by a great deal of uncertainty,especially when putting together founding teams. A startup's direction and chances of success are influenced by the team creation process, including who is in the team, how roles are established, and how responsibilities change over time. Although incubators are well known for helping early-stage businesses, little is known about how exactly they affect team building procedures. Research has largely focused on tangible outputs, such as funding or survival rates, without examining how incubators shape internal team dynamics.Purpose: This study explores how incubators influence early-stage team formation instartups. It seeks to understand the mechanisms, both formal and informal, through whichincubators affect team composition, decision-making, and role adaptation. In addition toprovide useful insights for incubator professionals and founders, the goal is to expandtheoretical knowledge of entrepreneurial team formation.Method: This research adopts a qualitative, process-oriented approach grounded in a single case study of Jönköping Science Park, a university-affiliated Swedish incubator. Using the Gioia methodology, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with startup founders, incubator staff, and mentors. Additional secondary data sources, such as startup websites, were used to triangulate findings and trace team changes over time.Conclusion: The findings suggest that team formation in incubators unfolds in three overlapping levels: passive influence, internal influence, and direct support. Incubatorsinfluence this process through social interactions, structured feedback, and occasionalintervention. The incubator environment influences the team's decision-making process andtiming, but the founders retain agency. In addition to arguing for an additional perspective of incubators as active places for team development rather than merely resource providers, the thesis offers a conceptual model of team formation inside incubation.