Entrepreneurship

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is betting on the artificial intelligence "assistant" of startup Connectly.ai, as, together with other international investors, it has invested $20 million dollars in the company of Stefanos Loukakos and Yandong Liu.

The government is about to boost Greece's startup environment through a series of measures included in a new National Economy and Finance Ministry bill.

The Municipality of Nicosia is offering a free, two-month business accelerator program designed for individuals, groups and existing businesses in the creative and cultural sectors in Cyprus.

Deputy Foreign Minister George Kotsiras and the head of the Public Employment Service (DYPA), Spiros Protopsaltis, signed a memorandum of cooperation aimed at engaging the Greek diaspora on Wednesday. According to an announcement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the memorandum seeks to inform Greeks living abroad about job opportunities in Greece.

They used to be among the protagonists of Greek entrepreneurship, with a powerful presence in industry, construction and retail commerce, and a significant international presence. Yet, overborrowing, poor management and a failure to predict the deterioration of market conditions sent these firms into a tailspin that was followed by the inevitable crash.

Faced with a sharp decline in mergers and acquisitions, the government is providing more generous tax incentives to encourage them. It also wants to reward companies that invest heavily in research and development, as well as angel investors that put up their own assets to finance startups and other small businesses in exchange for equity.

Greek scale-ups, as growing startups are called, are looking for more funding, after a comparatively dry last couple of years.

According to a five-country survey by Deloitte Private, 79% of Greek scale-ups are looking for more funding.

But only 13% are certain they will find the funds they seek, with another 40% saying they are "relatively positive" they will do so.

Under the pressure of Greece's creditors, in the days of the financial crisis, three major pieces of legislation were passed to simplify the way businesses could start their activity. Several years later, local authorities - the ones responsible for most of the inspections - are essentially not delivering on their obligations and inspections are practically non-existent. The reason?

Startups in Greece have also been feeling the global financing crunch over the past three years.

As it did around the world, financing for startups in Greece peaked in 2021, when companies either active in Greece or Greek-owned but active abroad received a capital infusion of nearly $1 billion.

İTÜ ARI Teknokent has announced it is taking the Big Bang Startup Challenge event, which showcases Türkiye's top startups and facilitates their meetings with investors, to the global stage.

The first of these events, Big Bang London Demo Day, will take place in London on Sept. 26, Teknokent said in a statement.