Reacțiile nu au întârziat să apară cu o doză de amuzament. Dar se pare că doi fondatori ai unui startup au luat această ocazie în serios, cu scopul de a ridica finanțare pre-seed. 

Am agreat să nu publicăm multe detalii, startupul fiind încă mod stealth, dar putem divulga că este vorba de o platformă cu focus pe energie și schimbări climatice, ce folosește inteligența artificială, pentru a monitoriza informațiile despre evenimente geopolitice și sociale și crează predicții despre viitorul evoluției climei. Aceste scenarii sunt stocate pe blockchain, pentru a fi folosite de agenții guvernamentale, corporații și organizații non-guvernamentale cu scopul de a implementa strategii mai bune ce pot îmbunătăți viață cetățenilor.

Fondatorul acestui startup stealth a preluat această idee din seria de cărți science fiction “The Foundations” scrisă de Isaac Asimov, în care personajul principal al cărților, creează un model matematic ce prezice evenimentele din viitor cu exactitate.

“Mi-am dat seama că, deși trilogia a fost scrisă acum 70 de ani, abia în acest moment avem capacitatea de calcul, informațiile necesare la nivel global și algoritmii de inteligență artificială în așa fel încât să transformăm acest subiect SF în realitate” – spuse CEOul acestui startup stealth.

Elon Musk și Peter Thiel sunt investitori cunoscuți în industria tehnologică. Sunt, de asemenea, cunoscuți pentru modul lor de gândire out-of-the-box și pentru disponibilitatea de a-și asumă riscuri foarte mari. Așa că nu este de mirare că au fost intrigați atunci când acest fondator de startup le-a prezentat noua sa companie îmbrăcat în vampir la petrecerea de la Bran.

La auzul ideii, investitorii au oprit petrecerea și și-au îndreptat toată atenția spre acest startup. Iar după două ore de discuții, investitorii au decis să riște și să investească 10 milioane de dolari în acest startup nelansat încă.

“Astfel, cu acest capital, vom continua dezvoltarea tehnologiei bazate inteligenței artificiale și vom putea angaja alți ingineri cu experientă pentru a îmbunătăți folosirea prototipului. Anul acesta am testat predicțiile rezultate pe razboiul din Ucraina și pe mersul crizei economice, cu rezultate destul de bune” – susține CTO-ul startupului.

La auzul acestei vești, investitorii de tip angel din România, au venit cu propunerea de a sindicaliza o investiție, pentru a contribui, alături de Elon și Peter la finanțarea startupului, formalizarea actelor făcându-se în următoarele câteva zile, odată cu încorporarea în Delaware și mutarea sediului în Silicon Valley.

Pentru a asigura eficientizarea capitalului, Elon și-a pus la dispoziția celor doi fondatori, tiny house-ul de lângă sediul Tesla, unde vor locui în următorul an și vor beneficia de mentorat săptămânal din partea lui și a lui Peter.

Acest caz arată că, chiar și în domeniul inteligenței artificiale, investitorii caută inovație și risc. Dacă aveți un produs inovator, asigurați-vă că vă prezentați în modul cel mai atrăgător pentru investitorii potențiali. Cu toate acestea, asigurați-vă că inovația este reală și că aveți un plan bun de a lansa pe piață. 

La Activize monitorizăm si strângem veștile despre startupuri si finanțări (după cum este și acest exemplu) și ți le trimitem direct în inbox. Vom reveni în perioada următoare, cu un interviu și cu diverse alte informații despre acest startup, ce se anunță a fi noul flagship startup al ecosistemului românesc de startupuri. 

Pentru a rămâne la curent cu evoluția acestuia, te poți abona la newsletterele noastre: Startups League (cu oportunități de finanțare și accelerare pentru startupuri), Investors League (cu startupuri ce caută finanțare) sau Startup Ecosystem Radar (cu știrile relevante din ecosistemul de startupuri).

PS: Pare incredibil așa-i? Păi cam așa este, acest articol este un anecdotă ficțională la fel ca petrecerea de la Bran care circulă în media. Credem că totuși există un sâmbure de adevăr (nu știm care este mai exact, dar când îl vom descoperi și noi, te anunțăm).

Based on what i saw in my work with startups, very rarely a startup dies (or even challenged) because of direct competitors. There are dozens of reasons related to team, business model, market need, product etc. which have a much much higher chance to kill a startup.

While analysing 100+ venture-backed (so theoretically not very early-stage) startups post-mortems, CBInsights made a study / statistic of “Top 20 Reasons Startups Fail” and competition was not even listed among those 20 top reasons.

I remember that, at my first startup, we were constantly watching the competitors (around 7 other startups spread around Europe) and putting emphasis on differentiation points. But two years later all of these startups were dead or zombies without even being influenced by the existence of the others.

Actual competition (= two startups get to clash on the same potential clients) happens later in the game when both have product-market fit, when they are targeting the same users.

Until then it’s good to watch competitors, learn from their actions; but it’s more of an imaginary threat compared with the other potential causes of failure.

__________________

If you are a startup founder join our “Startups League” where we inform you about various opportunities that appear on our radar (investment funds, acceleration calls, conferences, competitions, business development opportunities, grants and other opportunities).

At Activize our aim is to monitor and gather information about the startups ecosystems in Eastern Europe and deliver it to stakeholders in a meaningful and useful way. You can contact us at hello@activize.tech.

From my point of view, I recommend each founder to contact the various existing accelerators and discuss everything to form their own opinion. Based on previous experiences with various accelerators you will find down below a series of questions that the founders can ask both the accelerators and their staff to figure out what is best for their startup.

In the last 3 years the word accelerator has come to be used quite often and with different meanings. The model has evolved from traditional accelerators that offer pre-seed investment, to corporate ones with a focus on one or more areas, but also to those based on equity services.

Accelerators, both traditional and newer models, usually offer a mix of the following:

• an educational program with thematic workshops
• access to mentors, various experts,consultants who can help with pieces of advice and feedback
• business development services related to their product / startup
• market access and expertise (such as finance, health)
• support on administrative and legal issues
• providing a framework for communication with other startups in the accelerator and mutual support
• office space (although the pandemic has shifted many of the activities online)
• some also offer investment – usually between €20K and €100K for 5-10% equity in the startup

1. Going back to the startups area, first of all, the founders should know clearly what their situation is, for example:

• Is it the right time for an accelerator? – If your startup’s business model is already validated and the trajectory is clear, do you still need all the activities in that program?

• What do you need an accelerator for? It could be for several reasons, but it is important to form your expectations according to the needs of the startup:

• access to an extended network (mentors, company representatives, potential clients)
• clarifying the vision related to the business and the product
• the investment offered and the connections with the other investors
• finding a co-founder or recruiting new people to the team

• What investment are you looking for – What is your preferred amount and what minimum threshold do you need? What calculations do you rely on when proposing this amount? Make a budget with your monthly expenses and a cost forecast for the next year, you can also use a template like this one here.

• Do you need capital to finish the product faster, to validate the business model or to expand?

Another important suggestion comes from Valerica Moțoc, former participant in the Startarium program:

‍“I think that when you think of applying to an accelerator, you have to ask yourself questions about yourself as a founder. And one of them would be: [what do I need to do better and grow my business?] And I think that the question about oneself applies very well in Romania because most of the founders still come from the IT field, so they probably lack the know-how of business, finance and sales. Maybe that’s how they realize that they either need to learn other skills or find a co-founder who has the necessary skills. ”

2. Some questions that need to be asked regarding the accelerator (some of them already have answers on the accelerator website, but others can be asked directly).

1. What are the activities that will be included in the program? What is compulsory and what not?
2. Who are the mentors and to whom will we have access? Are they coming to the accelerator or will we meet separately?
3. Who will I work specifically within this accelerator? What expertise do the members of the organizing team have?
4. How much time do I have to devote to accelerator activities? If there is something that is not useful to us, will we be able to not participate in that activity?
5. Beyond the activities and access to mentors, what else do you offer us? Office space, product consulting, business development support (how many hours per week)?
6. How will the communication between our team and your team take place? Do all the founders have to get involved in the program or one representative is enough?
7. At what intervals will the meetings be held about how progress report and status check
8. How much equity you take and what funding you offer (this is usually known in advance)
9. Through which process do you invest in a startup? (ex: equity investment, convertible notes)
10. What are the conditions for a subsequent investment on your part?
11. How many funds are you in contact with that could provide us with follow-on investment?
12. What are the expectations from our startup in exchange for participation?

There are also accelerators that look for startups on a certain vertical/domain – in this case a worthwhile analysis needs to be made on whether the network to which the accelerator has access includes companies and people in the industry in which your startup operates.

It is important to see the term-sheet you need to sign to participate in the accelerator. I do not recommend an accelerator that does not make public the conditions in the term-sheet.

In an interview with start-up.ro, Jon Bradford, nicknamed “the godfather of European accelerators”, mentions that:

‍“Before you agree to participate in such a program, do your homework. Talk to those who participated and receive feedback to see if the program is worthwhile and if it’s ok to take action in your startup.”

Other founders who have gone through an accelerator are the best source of information about the quality of that accelerator. Usually the participating startups are listed on the accelerator website, so you can easily get the contact details of the founders to ask for an informed opinion. Write to 4-5 founders and you will for sure receive some answers. It takes 15 minutes to write to them. And don’t just rely on one answer, it’s good to hear more than one.

3. Additionally, we recommend that the participation in the accelerator to be conditioned by the setting of clear objectives, based on the needs of the startup, to be agreed by both the founders of the startup and the managers of the accelerator. For example in the Memorandum of Understanding you can have something like:

By the end of the acceleration period we will achieve the following:

• (product) the product will reach the level of MVP which includes … and will be tested with 50 potential customers
• (business model) – we will validate / invalidate the three monetization models and we will draw a conclusion that is the most appropriate
• (sales) we will reach the first 20 paying customers, with a conversion rate of 10%
• (investment) we will attract a further round of investment of €100K in the next 2 months from the end of the acceleration period
• (marketing) we will clarify which are the three acquisition channels that have the greatest potential
• (team) we will hire another backend developer and a marketing person with experience on running campaigns

It does not mean that it is mandatory for these objectives to be achieved 100%, but the expectations of both sides are clarified and a common direction for the work is set, and those in the accelerator will be able to use their resources in those directions.

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After two acceleration programs in which I participated and ten other incubation/acceleration programs in which I was involved as a mentor or coordinator, for me the most important decision factor is the attitude of the team in the accelerator and what kind of relationship you can establish with them.

It is important for the created relationship to be constructive, to have mutual respect. An accelerator can’t impose on a startup what to do next, it can only advise, consult, influence decisions, but in the end the founders are the ones who will make the business/product decision.

The accelerator should provide the right framework for founders to make as well-informed business decisions as possible. If an accelerator ends up forcing a startup into doing something, then I think it didn’t know how to explain well enough the reasons why a startup should make a certain move or it did not have the right attitude.

————————————————

In conclusion, I think that an accelerator should be used to the maximum by the startup. In the acceleration programs we worked on, I was the most impressed by those who actively requested access to our network (mentors, company managers, potential customers, investors, consultants) and who constantly asked us about various opportunities or with the ones with whom we talked a lot and in detail about the problems they had.

Although the employees of the accelerator will offer various things, the founders are the ones who should ask for as much as possible and be proactive in using the resources of the accelerator, sometimes to the irritation of those involved; only then you will know that you have asked for enough and if you have reached the threshold. Keep asking, of course with respect and consideration. Make use of everything you can, the accelerator’s employees will say no if they can’t offer something (and it’s very normal that they can’t or don’t have time for everything you ask for, but at least you asked and found out).

That being said, good luck accelerating!

We’re grateful to Start-up.ro and other publications like Startup Cafe, ZF, Business Review, Wall-Street, Startups&theCity and Tech.EU, as they are among the ones which are breaking many of these news.

In the previous article we overviewed 42 news pieces that were selected from those 7 months; while for this one, although we cover 5 months, the worthy news pieces selected went up to 90, which (subjectively) means that the ecosystem increased its activity a lot.

The news are clustered on several main topics for easier reading, as you’ll see below, and although some of the pieces might be fitting in other categories as well. The point was to give a structure, without entering a debate about where each would fit best.

Venture capital and investments in startups

It seemed to be a very active autumn, with 22 investment rounds amounting to €25M-€30M (some of them were not disclosed as sums). Seems like a good evolution compared with January to July 2019 period, which saw around 25 investment rounds with around €15M invested in total (we’re not counting here UiPath’s $568M round).

1. The Norwegian group Visma (focused on digitalisation, integration and automation of business processes) enters the SmartBill shareholding, receiving over half of the company. SmartBill is used by 65 000 SMEs in Romania to issue over 2 000 000 monthly invoices, with an annual total value of 4 billion euro. The startup founders will keep the control and will continue to develop the business, with the benefit of expertise and market opportunity offered by Visma.
2. MEDIjobs, medical recruitment on-line platform in Romania, has obtained $900K in a new funding round led by Gapminder VC and other business angel investors. In July, MEDIjobs opened its first office in New York and already has more than 60 clients who together need to recruit over 1,000 people annually. The company plans to consolidate its presence on the US during the next year.
3. Early Game Ventures (EGV) announced five investments during the autumn as follows, some of them also involving a few angel investors:
   (1) pre-seed investment in Adiem, a startup focused on processing health data;
   (2) €200K round in RoboSelf, a startup that develops an assistive software robot technology;
   (3) €500K in Neobility, a startup founded by Mihai Rotaru — one of the founders of the Clever Taxi mobility app (Neobility develops technologies that support the new wave of urban mobility solutions globally, with the aim of radically improving the capacity and movement speed of city residents);
   (4) €750K in Bunnyshell, an automated DevOps platform, with the aim to support international expansion and further product development.
   (5) undisclosed sum at a valuation of 8M in Druid, a chatbot-focused startup for corporates in retail, banking and health, with the participation of several angel investors.
4. Bright Spaces, a real-estate solution facilitating properties management, received funding of €185K from Sparking Capital, as lead investor, with Growceanu and Ilinca Paun as co-investors.
5. V7 Capital, Gapminder VC and Difrnt Agency invested €120K in Flip.ro, a platform marketplace that sells verified second hand phones.
6. The entrepreneur Cătălin Chiș, angel investor in Noah Watches, invested in the startup MOCAPP, a digital platform founded by Florin Grozea (formerly HI-Q). The platform uses technology to facilitate the achievement of marketing objectives in influencer campaigns.
7. DocProcess, a company specialized in the automation and interoperability of business processes within and between companies — expands its national and European presence, with the help of an infusion of capital from the private equity fund Morphosis Capital.
8. Frisbo, a smart e-fulfillment platform that takes over the storage, processing and delivery of orders for online stores, has raised €1.2M in a financing round from GapMinder VC and Roca X.
9. Casta.ro (online real estate agency financed by the entrepreneur Călin Fusu, founder of Neogen Group) invested €150K in Cleany.ro, a platform that offers cleaning services with the aim to use the synergy and complementarity of the two platforms. The service is already available in Bucharest and Cluj.
10. Confidas.ro, startup offering financial overview and information over Romanian companies, attracted Gapminder VC as investor, rounding the total investment to €130K, based also on the capital invested by V7 Capital and several angel investors.
11. FintechOS, startup offering hyper-personalised, automated financial technology to banks, announced that it has secured $14M in Series A investment. The funding was led jointly by Earlybird’s Digital East Fund and OTB Ventures, with participation from existing investors Gapminder VC and Launchub.
12. MedicAI received €500K funding from D Moonshots and RocaX. Medicai is a collaborative online medical portal for imaging investigations that enables patient-doctor collaboration, imaging investigations, online storage and sharing.
13. Bittwatt Financial Investments PLC invested €2M in the app BGourmet, focused on restaurant reservations. The app was already installed in 200 restaurants in Bucharest, and investors think the number of restaurants will rise up in the next 6 months.
14. SeedBlink, a new equity crowdfunding platform which facilitates investments in the local startup ecosystem, listed Evertoys for investment through the platform, with Sparking Capital and Venture Growth Partners participating in the round as follow-on investment. Evertoys is transforming the way families get toys for their children: instead of buying them, they can now only pay a subscription for using the toys. Meanwhile, the €150K milestone was achieved!
15. ROCA fund announced the acquisition of 30% shares in the food delivery platform Yellow.Menu, in a €300K transaction, with the aim to strengthen management team, optimize business model and reach sustainability.
16. GapMinder VC and the private investors network TechAngels have concluded a partnership, based on which GapMinder VC will participate in any investment round between 40,000 and 200,000 euros made by TechAngels members, with a similar amount.
17. Andrei Pitis announced the formation of Simple Capital, with first two investments (15% in each): Garderoba Infinită and PentestTools. Valerica Dragomir, former executive director of ANIS, joined as managing director of Simple Capital.
18. As in previous season, we had around 20+ European funds, to name a few Point Nine Capital, Launchub, Credo Ventures, Seedcamp, 500startups, visiting and scouting actively in Romania; they are in talks with various startups but no investment from their side has been announced yet.
19. The online trading platform eMag has acquired a majority stake of shares from the Romanian company EuCeMananc (food delivery to restaurants, to online ordering). eMag will own 54% of the shares in EuCeMananc, but the founders of will continue to run the delivery business.
20. Cluj Startups and Transilvania Angels Network continues the series of angel investment meetups in Cluj, concluding the year with 10 meetups, 13 startups that pitched their products/businesses and the first syndicate formed in the network with purpose to invest in Telios (platform providing telemedicine services). The syndicate is managed by Emmett King and Florin Pop, previous investors in Telios and members of the local investors network.
21. TypingDNA, startup started in Oradea with headquarters in New York, is looking to raise $7 million in funding for its AI-driven technology that can recognize people based on the way they type, both on their laptops and mobile devices. A new SEC filing says that, so far, the company raised $5.25 million towards that goal.

Programs for startups

1. KPMG Romania’s Startup GrowPad launched a call for startups for its second edition in coordination with Spherik, with the aim of finding startups that fit the KPMG Romania resources. The partnering startups will be announced in January 2020. In the first edition, five startups participated in the personalized program, focused on partnerships, business development and sales activities to KPMG clients, prototype testing inside KPMG or financial investment.
2. Techcelerator, the acceleration program sustained by the GapMinder VC, opened the fourth acceleration round for tech and digital startups, in which approximately 10 selected startups will receive €50K. The fourth round of the acceleration has started in December and will last until June 2020 and it will be held in both Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca. The selected startups will be officially announced in January.
3. Orange Fab announced the collaboration with 6 new tech startups and expands the fields of activity; the program’s intention being to better meet the business needs of its clients. Since the launch, in 2017, Orange collaborated with 16 startups in this program. These collaborations have resulted in 3 directions — solutions used by Orange and its clients in commercial or pilot projects, solutions integrated in the Orange portfolio and collaboration in European research and development projects Horizon 2020 alongside Orange.
4. Metro Systems launched Tech’N Trade Incubator (with support from Cluj Startups and Activize) aimed at entrepreneurs and startups that innovate in retail and related fields. The company wants to connect entrepreneurs with the B2B retail market and provide support in launching and developing their startups. The incubation period is focused on 6 product ideas and will continue until spring.
5. EIT Health’s SmartUp Lab pilot program was launched in the end of September in partnership with FreshBlood HealthTech; with the aim of supporting health-tech focused startup ideas coming from entrepreneurs, life-science domain experts, students or academia members. Two teams were selected and participated in october at the Forge of talents event organised by Medical University of Lodz- Poland and EIT Health.
6. StepFWD, the 6-week pre-accelerator for tech startups with gender-balanced teams, had its first batch during this autumn, closing with demoday event at the end of November. During the event, the 9 graduate startups of the program presented their products and team in front of an audience of entrepreneurs, investors, IT industry experts and guests. The program was organised by TechHub Bucharest and Codette, in partnership with Google for Startups and supported by the US Embassy in Romania.
7. Level-up the first accelerator program for makers had its first incubation period with 5 startups and the program demo-day in the beginning of October. Level-up is developed by Nod makerspace association and Babele, with the support of Banca Transilvania and Bosch.
8. Student entrepreneurial organisations in Cluj were quite active this autumn. Founded inside universities, each of them ran programs for students with potential to become startup founders, for example ASAIH in the Medical University of Cluj-Napoca and SASUTCN in the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca.
9. Future Makers has selected the young people with ideas for future startups. In the closing of the program, from the 55 teams that were in a 4-month incubation period, seven of them received financial awards worth €20K euros, tens of hours of tax and legal advice and access to a global network.
10. The pan-European EIT Jumpstarter program and innovation contest took place this autumn The program activities were co-organised by EIT organisations in CEE and implemented in Romania by FreshBlood HealthTech with the support of Activize. EIT Jumpstarter is an innovation contest aiming to reach out, identify and support the best ideas from researchers, professionals and early-stage startups. Six teams from Romania participated in the program while one of them qualified and won second prize in the final event which took place in November.
11. Kinderpedia, Parinte.EU Kinetobebe, Arttachement received €120K financial support while participating in the acceleration program Innovators for Children, organised by Impact Hub Bucharest in partnership with Botnar Foundation and Impact Hub Basel. During the 100 program days, the 12 participating teams benefited from workshops, feedback and follow-up meetings with the mentoring team.
12. BCR InnovX business accelerator has launched registrations for the scaleups cohort. This stage is dedicated to businesses that have a turnover or have attracted investments from 1 million to 2.6 million euros in the past.
13. Commons Accel program was launched in the beginning of October with a cohort of 15 startups and had its first demoday event on December 3rd. Commons Accel is a new independent, equity-free accelerator launched in Bucharest, focused on PropTech, IoT and SDG projects.
14. Risky Business and Babes-Bolyai University announced the launch of Flux Labs, an accelerator for Technology Transfer, founded to connect high-potential research teams and industry collaborators. The program is open to all disciplines taught at the university.
15. Rubik Hub launched Rubik Garage, a 6-month pre-accelerator focused on early stage startups. The program gathered 22 startups and had its demoday event on the 27th of November.
16. EIT InnoEnergy in partnership with Iceberg consultancy company, opened a hub for ecotechnology startups from Romania. The role of the new hub is to support innovators, researchers, startups and companies active in energy related fields to develop, improve, scale and internationalize their products and services. Over the next year, the hub will organize a pre-acceleration program, InnoEnergy Primer, to facilitate the startup, and innovation of startups and innovations in the InnoEnergy network. InnoEnergy is an initiative of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT), funded through the Horizon 2020 program.
17. After the second edition, Changeneers (tech for good), organised Impact Hub Bucharest and Samsung, will launch soon the new edition of the competition, together with an incubation program for startups.

Startup conferences and events

1. Under the motto “better products + faster growth”, the main startup-conference of this autumn was How to Web (29–30 October, in Bucharest). Having a new format, the conference gathered really good speakers, many investors and startups and around 1500 participants. During the conference the CEE Tech Landscape Eastern Disruptors report was published.
2. The conference also had a few pre-events, most notable, one focused on venture capital gathering around 100 finance professionals and investors, while the other focused on startup communities, gathering community builders from all over Romania.
3. Twenty selected startups competed for €125K investment award during How to Web’s Startup Spotlight — the amount was syndicated by TechAngels Romania, GapMinder VC and RocaX and the winning startup was Machinations. While in the “UiPath Automation Awards”, SmartDreamers, the recruitment marketing automation solution, was named the winner of the competition.
4. In the startup track at IT Days conference, the public decided to award Mockless (a platform which helps developers create API prototypes without coding) with a trip to Silicon Valley.
5. Seven startups presented their concept and solutions this year in the pitch organized on the main stage of the GoTech World conference in October. The startups were selected from a number of twenty that also participated in the exhibition space.
6. The fourth edition of Startarium PitchDay brought together, on November 5th, over 1000 entrepreneurs, investors or professionals from all over the country. Ten startups reached the stage of the grand finale. The prizes (€105K in total) were claimed by Digitail, MedicAI, Kinderpedia and xVision.
7. Impact Hub Bucharest organised the Central European Startup Awards finals on 21st of November, part of Global Startup Awards. Winners were announced in 16 categories related to startup domains but also related to ecosystem roles (like Female Role Model of the Year and Founder of the Year and for ecosystem supporters like Investor of the Year, Best Acceleration/Incubation Program and Best Coworking Space).
8. This autumn, we saw tech conferences dedicating more space for startups, either by organising a startup track or a startup booths area. Among them we were involved in Transylvanian International Clusters Conference’s Startup Expo and Codecamp’s Startup Tracks in Iași, Cluj and Bucharest (organised by Rubik Hub with partners like How to Web and Cluj Startups)
9. How to Web team continued the Demo Nights series of events in Bucharest, Brașov and Iași. Each of them showcased local startups that pitched and had the chance to meet with representatives of KPMG, Orange, BCR, eMag, Google, Alpha Bank, Shoenherr and Metro Systems.
10. Part of the My-Gateway project activities, Spherik organised two one-day startup funding workshops for startup founders in Bucharest and Cluj, focused on how to raise investment, negotiation with investors, venture capital landscape and legal terms.

Startup-related hackathons

1. Startup Weekend events took place in Cluj (in September, edition #9, encouraging women participation and involvement) and in Timisoara (in November, edition #7). Meanwhile the next Startup Weekend in Cluj (#10) was announced for March 13th to 15th 2020.
2. In November Startarium organised the Crowdfunding Makeathon Weekend, the largest project dedicated to crowdfunding in Romania. Ten entrepreneurs received 20,000 euros to promote their campaigns which were launched during Startarium PitchDay.
3. Over 70 digital banking specialists, developers and founders of fintech startups participated in mid-September weekend in the Open Banking Hackathon in Bucharest. Developer teams built solutions based on the multi-banking connectivity platform provided by Finqware, through which they were able to connect to test environments of 15 banks in CEE, covering 9 countries, including Romania.
4. Rubik Hub organised a new edition of Startup Spinner, gathering 15 startups and 40 mentors and investors to guide and to advise them during one weekend in Piatra Neamt. The team also organised Startup Challenges hackathon in Iași during which 11 startups came with challenges they had and 40 specialists focused on helping them solve those challenges during one weekend.
5. On October 25–26th, Impact Hub Bucharest organized , an EIT Climate-KIC supported hackathon focused on

Investment news

We witnessed approximately 25 deals totalising close to €10M, including the ones in seed/acceleration phase, but those take less than 10% of the total sum (we’re not including here UIPath’s Series D round).

1. The Romanian based unicorn, UIPath raised Series D investment round of $568M at more than $7B valuation. UiPath was founded in 2005 and began raising private capital in 2015 and has since experienced rapid growth of its valuation and annual recurring revenue (ARR). The company went from $1 million to $100 million in annual recurring revenue in less than two years. It counts close to 2000 enterprise customers and various sources estimate a $450 million in ARR in 2019.
2. E-commerce platform, Blugento, received funding of €1 million from R22, a Polish IT group, with aim to expand in central Europe. Blugento grew its revenue almost 10 times in just 3 years to 1.5 million RON and it was valued at almost €4 million in this transaction of 31% equity stake.
3. GapMinder Venture Partners rounded its capital to €40M size, while continuing the investments in startups like Undelucram.ro (platform for employees to review companies), MediJobs (career marketplace for healthcare recruiting), Beez (platform for saving money on online shopping), Deepstash (curated & reliable bite-sized ideas from any online articles), Finqware (middleware financial API aggregation platform to interconnect businesses and fintechs with banks), FintechOS and TypingDNA (see bellow).
4. FintechOS, startup focused on accelerating the digital transformation of financial institutions, has attracted €1,1M post-seed investment in a new round led by GapMinder VC, with participation of LAUNCHub Ventures, Gecad Ventures and other private investors. This makes the total capital invested so far worth €2.7 million. The company plans to continue its expansion and raising series A round by the end of 2019.
5. SymphoPay, a middleware platform that adds marketing capabilities and analytics to existing POS devices, received investment of €650,000 from Early Game Ventures, GECAD Ventures, Sparking Capital and other business angels. The solution is designed for retailers who want to integrate all partner banks into one single payment terminal which is connected to a central platform capable to integrate marketing and loyalty campaigns in real-time.
6. Early Game Ventures (EGV) announced the launch of its acceleration program. The fund selects around 5 startups each year, providing up to €200 000 for 7% -10% of the equity. The fund invested already in Watto (company building a network of ultra-fast charging stations for electric vehicles in Central and Southern Europe), Bookvitals (extracts essential information from books and provides book summaries) and as well Symphopay (as mentioned above).
7. Gecad Ventures participated with a follow-on investment in TypingDNA. Romanian AI-based typing biometric secured $1.5M funding from several investors including GapMinder and other international investors. The startup combines AI and behavioral biometrics as an identification verification tool for recognizing people by the way they type on desktop keyboards and mobile devices.
8. A new private equity fund of €45 million was launched with the support of European Investment Fund. Morphosis Capital is focused on growth investments, of €5–15 million per transaction in companies active in sectors such as consumer goods and supporting sectors, healthcare, technology with impact in the real economy and B2B services.
9. AlphaBlock, a Romanian AI company that builds investment management solutions for pension funds, family offices, and hedge funds, has raised an undisclosed amount from Real Ventures, a Canadian early-stage venture capital firm. The investment brings the startup’s valuation to $15 million.
10. Bucharest-based Questo raised seed round of funding from two private angel investors, bringing its valuation to $1.5 million. Founded in 2017, Bucharest-based startup Questo has developed a mobile city exploration game which is already present in 40 European cities. Questo plans to use the funding to expand to some of the largest cities in the world, including London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Barcelona.
11. DigiTail, SaaS startup that helps digitise veterinary practices and founded by Romanian living in the Nordics, closed an investment round of 220 000 euro after their participation in Fast Track Malmo accelerator. The same accelerator invested also in Neurolabs (which provides artificial intelligence solutions for the retail industry; in issues related to supply chain, from forecasting to on-shelf monitoring and self-checkout).
12. Jobful, recruitment through gamification platform, has completed its first angel investment round and obtained EUR 100,000 in funding from three private investors. The investment will be used for both further platform development as well as a mobile app to be launched this fall. Jobful targets young professionals who are looking to develop their careers as well as companies seeking to make the recruitment process more efficient by providing an initial test of candidates’ skills and an assessment of their interests.
13. Techstars Berlin invested and accelerated two Romanian startups, MEDIjobs (healthcare career market place) and Nifty Learning (operational intelligence for enterprise training management), with focus on client acquisition and growth in international markets.
14. InnerTrends (data science product for SaaS that uncovers insights in customer onboarding, retention and engagement) is part 500startups’ 25th batch. As a US-based four-month seed program, the 500 Startups seed fund invests $150,000 in participating companies in exchange for 6% equity.
15. Bucharest-based blockchain startup SWAZM raised a round of €500k from Armand Domuta, an investor and founder & CEO of Restart Energy. Swazm has launched a decentralized architecture to enable the horizontal scaling of distributed applications (DApps) into mainstream usage.
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Startup exits

1. Appsulate, cybersecurity startup, was bought by the Zscaler, American company, leader in cloud security. Appsulate was founded in 2016 by Alex Negrea and Uli Mittermaier, while having Mihai Rotaru and Andrei Pitiș as investors. In 2018, Appsulate was part of Innovation Labs and Orange Fab programs.
2. Unloq, Cluj-based startup, focused on multi-factor authentication announced its acquisition by iWelcome, worldwide product leader in identity & access management for B2C and B2B scenarios, for an undisclosed sum. iWelcome’s connection with Unloq is not new, the company has been using the startup product in the past few years.
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Conferences and events

1. ICEE.Fest team came this year with a new concept for its festival: UPGRADE 100. During the startup competition, organised together with Start-up.ro, 14 startup presented their products and the winner, Antifragile (real-time impact monitoring and tracking of the supply chain) received €50 000 from GapMinder.
2. A new edition of Startup Europe Week took shape in spring, with the involvement of Spherik Accelerator, Startup Weekend Cluj, Rubik Hub and Startup Grind Iași in a series of events in Cluj-Napoca, Iași și Piatra-Neamț. Startup Europe Week is a pan-european event concept which took place in more than 300 cities with the aim to promote the European programs and success stories in various local startup communities.
3. Startup Europe Summit, took place in Cluj-Napoca in March, as a major conference focused on startups, part of Romania’s EU Presidency program. The event gathered representatives of various startup ecosystem and European Commission delegates in discussing support programs and policies aiming to grow the startup environment in Europe.
4. In preparation of How to Web conference, the team continued the demonight events in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, Timișoara and Iași. Each of them showcased local startups and had the chance to meet with representatives of KPMG, Orange, BCR, eMag, Google and Metro Systems.
5. Techsylvania gathered thousands of technology enthusiasts and startupers in a 2-day international conference, taking place in June, in Cluj-Napoca. Startup founders had the chance to network and participate in Startup Alley (supported by Google, with Activize’s involvement) and in Startup Avalanche (organised by Risky Business) competition with a prize of €100 000 (won by Italian healthtech startup, PatchAI.io).
6. Startup Weekend organisers continued the series of events, in Cluj-Napoca (March, with a follow-on edition in upcoming September) and in Bucharest (in May, focused on fintech). By the way, overall in Romania, there have been 31 Startup Weekend events, since 2010. Best example of startup initiated at such event is Clever Taxi which was sold last year for more than €10M.

Programs for startups

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We’ve tracked around 15 programs for startups happening this year, a good part of them sponsored by corporations as well. On one side incubation/pre-acceleration with focus on education and validation, while more advanced ones, acceleration, focused on launch and growth.

1. Impact Hub Bucharest organized startup related projects such as Startup Barometer, Innovators for Children (acceleration program for solutions to health problems faced by children), Creative Business Studio (dedicated to young entrepreneurs in creative industries) and for the near future the Central European Startup Awards Grand Finale, organized this year in Bucharest, is on its way.
2. BCR-InnovX Accelerator program was launched and is already working with a second batch of companies. The program supports them with access to grants, clients, investors, to Startup Grind global network and mentors. The first batch was focused on 10 startups, each with a turnover of more than €100,000, while the second batch was dedicated to aspiring entrepreneurs who have ideas at the beginning that they want to scale internationally.
3. Raiffeisen’s Elevator Lab, organised by TechHub Bucharest, had a new edition focused as educational program aimed at helping aspiring entrepreneurs understand what it takes to build a fintech startup and how they can turn their idea into an MVP. In June, the 9 participating teams presented their pitches and prototypes during the closing demonight.
4. Techcelerator accepted 7 startups in its third batch and invested in each of them €50 000. Previously 17 other startups have completed the first two rounds of acceleration, benefiting from a total investment of €1 million. Notable is also the partnership with EIT Digital in search for Romanian scaleups that can be support to grow internationally.
5. KPMG Startup Grow Pad program for B2B startup, launched by KPMG Romania and Spherik Accelerator last year, had its Demo Night on March 7th. Following a six-month collaboration period, Nifty Learning, iFactor, Jobful, Box2m and SYT.app presented their business and progress to the audience comprised of business managers, community members, investors and KPMG’s clients.
6. Metro Systems launched in Cluj the Tech’n Trade concept comprised of the Startup Hub (a collaboration program focused on retail startups) and the Club (a space offered for free for various community meetups and events), thus Tech’n Trade has become one of the most active gathering places for the startup community in Cluj.
7. UiPath has launched the Automation Awards, CEE Edition, while looking for B2B automation software business in the CEE region. The selected companies will receive money, mentorship, sales and marketing exposure and technical support for 12 months. Application can happen until September 2nd, while the semifinal and grand prize awards ceremony held at the How to Web conference.
8. The Changeneers competition organized by Impact Hub Bucharest and Samsung Romania had Tech Game Changers as its main theme this year. Out of the 47 startups, 12 moved to the final and Parking Spotter convinced the jury to be most promossing and won the top prize of €10,000 in funding.
9. For the 5th edition, Timisoara’s Startup Survivor educational program for young people interested in starting a startup, had 20 participants and over a period of three weeks they focused on lean startup and idea validation, in an informal environment organised by Cowork Timisoara.
10. Culturepreneurs developed its second edition — a program devoted to cultural industries, of startups in design, film, music, crafts, and media. Over a four month period, Cluj Cultural Centre and Activize.Tech provide workshops, mentoring and consultancy for the 5 teams selected in the program.
11. Innovation Labs program was organised in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Sibiu and Timișoara; it gathered 70 teams which participated in the 10-weeks pre-acceleration program. On May 20th the jury awarded best pitch to NotThisTimePal (counterfeit product detection by reverse image search), best product for CNEO (device used in knee injury recovery), best business to Heimdall (electricity consumption monitoring solution), best startup for TrustyCamera (mobile application for securing images against tampering) and best scale-up to Knosis.AI (providing machine learning datasets for developers).
12. StepFWD, a new program organised by TechHub Bucharest and Codette in partnership with Google for Startups and with support from the US Embassy in Romania, was launched. The 6-week pre-accelerator for tech startups is looking for gender-balanced teams that want to participate in the autumn batch.
13. Future Makers, educational program for future entrepreneurs, has nominated the finalists for its second edition. The jury of experts chose the best 55 teams to be part of the incubation program, among the teams, ROmenie (an online platform that aims to promote democracy in society) is project started in Start-up.ro’s Startup Your Life camp. Future Makers is organised by Social Innovation Solutions and Global Shapers Bucharest Hub.
14. Rubik Hub selected 22 startups selected to participate in Rubik Garage based in Piatra Neamt. Rubik Garage is a 6 months program that aims to develop the selected startups with the help of the mentors in the community.

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Other news

1. A group of five business angels from Timisoara, active primarily in high-tech areas decided to launch Growceanu platform as a means to contribute with investment, network and business expertise to local tech startups with high potential of growth.
2. The healthtech ecosystem grows with the launch of the Transylvania Digital Healthcare ecosystem, part of European Connected Healthcare Alliance, initiated by FreshBlood, with quarterly events organized in the future. Visibility for healthtech startups is on the rise as well as Cluj Innovation Days, Innovation Labs 2019, Startup Alley and UPGRADE 100 showcased products in health.
3. PropTech Romania, community focused on innovation in real estate area, was launched this spring. The team organized a proptech hackathon in April, while in June they organised the PropTech Demo Day, together with the TechAngels network, where 10 startups presented their products. FYI, across Europe, in 2018 there were €485 million invested in 119 proptech startups, proof that the domain is attractive and growing.
4. The equity-for-services, or ‘sweat equity’ model is not new. Kraian Ventures is putting to the test this model of building startups in Romania, using the power of creative and tech capital in joint ventures. They source founders, software development and design agencies with the proper startup mindset. In doing so, all partners have aligned incentives, limited risk and reduced time to market. All parties can go on to benefit from the future success of the product and company.
5. Cluj Startups is working on creating a network of local angel investors, with the purpose of bringing together business people who are interested in angel investing and mentoring tech startups. As a network, the focus is on connecting people with the desire to learn from each other while assisting the grow of the local startup environment. Five meetups took place this year with six startups presenting their products (with two of them in follow-on syndicating discussions).

So, this is it for now 🙂 Congrats to all the ones who worked hard and became part of the news! Let’s keep things rolling in the autumn!

We’re making a review of the main activities/contributions, while in the end we’ll take a shot at making a few predictions for the upcoming year, based on what we observed in the ecosystem and while working with some of these companies.

The list below is not exhaustive, for sure there were other activities that didn’t come to our attention, while other projects were not made public so we’ll not go into them.

So, what happened in 2018? One by one:

KPMG Romania partnered up with Spherik Accelerator to launch KPMG Startup Grow Pad, a program facilitating the connection with B2B startups in industries that KPMG has an edge and potential clients, with aim to develop commercial deals, invest or recommend the startup to KPMG Romania’s business connections.

Orange Fab program, in partnership with How to Web team, had its first demo day in September. At the event, it was announced the collaboration with 4 more startups, thus bringing the number of startups in the program to 10. The program was launched in September 2017, it has an on-going applications window, while it aims to reach commercial deals and integrations of startup products in the Orange ecosystem.”

Catalyst is Societe Generale European Business Services’s accelerator aiming to engage with startups and co-create solutions to business needs and challenges which SG deals with. During a 10-weeks program, companies selected worked on a specific business challenge, while SG will provide business guidance and mentors. The aim is to use the solutions in the SG group afterwards (no equity deal involved, just commercial partnership), thus the startup gaining a new client.

Societe Generale Group ran also an internal acceleration program, dedicated to employees and internal teams which have startup ideas. The best ideas get budget and support from the management. Romanian entities, European Business Services and BRD, in collaboration with TechHub Bucharest, had 3 such teams selected which have evolved into products that will be launched on the market in the first quarter of 2019.

Metro Systems (the information technology provider of Metro Group) is launched the Tech’n’Trade program, together with opening a new office in Cluj. Tech’n’Trade will support startups and young entrepreneurs with access to Metro’s Cash and Carry retail ecosystem, tech expertise, office space, mentoring and growth support.

Innovation Labs, the pre-acceleration program started in 2012, has already well established corporate partnerships which are supporting the whole network of events and workshops (5 cities in Romania): Orange, Carrefour, BRD, Continental, OMV Petrom, Microsoft, Adobe.

200 Seconds of Fame had also corporate companies supporting the competition, among them Orange, Nissan, Kaufland and BCR. The competition gathered 15 startups in the final taking place during the ICEE Fest conference.

Raiffeisen’s Elevator Lab is a corporate fintech partnership program in Central and Eastern Europe, created by Raiffeisen Bank International, aiming to find the best startups in the field of finance and to build long-term cooperation between them and the banks in the Raiffeisen Group. In Romania the competition was organised together with TechHub Bucharest and had 10 fintech startups in the final.

Startup Avalanche competition, part of Techsylvania conference, taking place in Cluj-Napoca, in June, had among corporate partners, Banca Transilvania, Betfair, Bosch, E.ON, Accenture and Metro, while it gathered 15 startups from Europe in the final.

Alpha Hub is a program initiated by Paddy Power Betfair in collaboration with Techsylvania and Risky Business, focusing on product-focused startups, development companies, individuals, and emerging teams. which can help overcome challenges in the gaming industry or focusing on the Responsible Gambling concept. The programs offers technical, product, and business consulting to help your company gain corporate collaboration and clients, while not taking any equity.

How to Web’s startup competition, Startup Spotlight, gathered a good range of corporate support. The competition was powered by KPMG Romania, followed by Bitdefender, Unicredit, Orange, Metro and Adobe as sponsors in the conference. The competition took place in November and it gathered 20 startups in the final, taking place during conference. Besides this, How to Web organized demonights events in Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara and Iasi, having usually 5–7 startups pitching and corporate representatives, among the jury members.

Besides being very active in supporting startup-related organisations like Techsylvania, Cluj Hub, Spherik Accelerator, Techcelerator, Banca Transylvania launched BT Store, a platform for partnering startups which can provide complementary services to BT’s SMEs clients, thus strengthening the positioning as “entrepreneurs’ bank”. Besides this, BT has invested directly in startups, for example Ebriza and Pago.

Level-up is a new initiative launched in December by Nod Maker Space and Babele, with the support of Banca Transilvania and Bosch. It is the first accelerator dedicated to entrepreneurial makers in Romania. Participants will receive the support and the tools needed to develop an innovative product design, to validate their business model, to create a sustainable growth strategy for their business and to build a successful company. It has the first application deadline on January 31st.

Startarium incubator and online platform, created by Impact Hub Bucharest provides entrepreneurs and startups with the resources to learn about product management, business model, together with experts or mentors. The climax is Startarium Pitch Day, an event that offers prizes worth 100,000 Euro cash, sponsored by ING Bank.

Telekom joined the startup ecosystem space by supporting the program WeAccelerate (by WeLoveDigital) and sponsoring 10 startups with 10 000 euro each and assuring office space and business mentoring for 6 months.

In health domain, we saw a few actions as well, like Johnson & Johnson sponsoring the second edition of Hacking Health Hackathon and Philips being the main partner at SSIMA (International Summer School on Imaging with Medical Applications) applied on Artificial Intelligence.

Trends for the upcoming year

• Overall, the fintech sector was clearly most active and will continue to be in the upcoming year. The perceived pressure through which the banking and finance sector goes, drives banks to get involved as they want to use the opportunities and partner with startups taking advantage of the PSD2 regulations coming up in the EU. Fintech is followed by sectors like retail, telco and energy, while health will be catching up in the upcoming years, but slower due to the complex nature of the health ecosystem and regulations.
• Companies will try to make the process of innovation and collaboration with startups more effective. The last two years were not necessarily measured with strict, detailed KPIs but the following year we’ll see more measurement and thoughtfulness towards having concrete results/outcomes
• Economy/market turmoils in Romania will influence already-planned strategies. Some companies will be tempted to cut the innovation funds or marketing budgets destined to positioning in the startup ecosystem especially those that haven’t seen enough clear outcome from their previous activities. But those companies which understood that the innovation process takes time and money but in the end it brings the unique opportunity, will continue to invest even more.
• We’ll see more effectiveness also in the processes of collaboration with startups. Corporates understand that speed and flexibility is paramount in their collaboration so they will smooth out processes, going faster towards results and business deals. This will take considerable effort also from that part of the staff which don’t interact with startups and might be a challenge for the inner works of a big company.
• Word goes fast in the startup community, so startups’ applications to various programs will go mostly through recommendation of trusted peers. The community will know which programs work better, which are slow and not helpful enough, thus reputation among the ecosystem players will become extremely important.
• The space will still be very interesting for corporates; their activity and participation in conferences and events will grow, as it will be a source of connecting with ecosystem, finding new information and PR in the community.
• The mix between traditional accelerators or funds and corporates will grow even more. Corporates understand their limitation in understanding startups and will continue to look to players who can intermediate/facilitate this collaboration process.
• Big companies will continue to work with local players for creating programs or competitions, which can be better promoted and formed by the existing conferences, accelerators. As well experts or upper management staff will be invited as mentors to various competitions and programs thus being a good way to see what is happening in the startup ecosystem.
• The funds and accelerators will receive investment from corporates or from upper management, so they will become limited partners in those venture capital structures. It will be a way for corporates to spot early startups to collaborate and benefit later on.

Although we saw action, overall the ecosystem needs more of these actions. Corporate companies can contribute, but it’s not up to them to build the ecosystem. We cannot have a healthy growing ecosystem, without all the types of actors being active. This includes accelerators and VC funds working with corporates, while universities being more involved in the entrepreneurial education and supporting startups springing up from academia environment.

The startup ecosystem in Romania is shaping up compared with the last 5 years thanks also multinational corporations. I believe they understood that on a global market which has less and less borders, the only real way of bringing added value to their services and products is by innovating.

If you have other relevant information, feel free to comment! Any other observations and predictions are very welcomed!