As non-corporate (herewith referred to as“independent”) incubators gain in popularity forpropelling digital innovation, traditional automotivefirms have set up in-house incubators (herewithreferred to as “corporate”) to accelerate innovationwithout disrupting too much the inherentorganizational structures and corporate cultures. Theoverarching objective is to establish the expectedbenefits for automotive firms from independentincubators when organizing corporate incubators.Using a comparative interview study, ten successfulindependent incubators in North America arediscussed in terms of their ability to provide support inthe digital domains. Our work has resulted in noveloperating models for categorizing incubators todescribe variations in focus areas and support fordigital innovation. The results sheds light on howcorporate incubators (internal to automotive firms)have the potential to shield digital ventures from thecomplexities of large and traditional establishments,and to promote interactions with other business unitswithin the firm when performing digital innovation.