Startup company

Cyprus' most pioneering entrepreneurs urge aspiring businesspeople to dare with passion, partner wisely, and prepare for hard work and endless challenges. These entrepreneurs have achieved success both locally and internationally through their startups.

The financing of international and domestic investors to Greek-owned startup companies has broken the barrier of $1 billion from the beginning of the year until today, about three months before 2024 expires.

Recognizing the need to highlight entrepreneurial ideas that can transform our country into a productive, extroverted, and competitive economy and aiming to provide comprehensive support to innovative scientists, research teams, and start-up entrepreneurial efforts to realize their potential and their vision, the National Bank of Greece has been implementing for 15 years a holistic program to s

Vestbee, Europe's leading platform for startups, VCs, accelerators, and corporates, has just released its VC Funding in the CEE Report for Q2 2024. The latest report highlights a significant increase in venture funding in Central and Eastern Europe, with investments reaching €940 million across over 150 rounds, despite ongoing challenges and persisting market uncertainties.

Ekaterina Zaharieva gave her first comment after being nominated for the role of European Commissioner for Startups, Innovation, and Research. She highlighted that this is one of the key portfolios for the future, playing a crucial role in the next European Commission.

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.

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.

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.