Romania is far from being Silicon Valley, but the success of Romanian start-ups in recent years has prompted a growing interest in this type of business and implicitly in supporting it. This is also proposed by Techcelerator, a business acceleration program that offers funds to help companies situated in the initial development phase to grow their business. The program has headquarters in both Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca and is supported by GapMinder, a venture capital fund that has recently penetrated the Romanian market.
In order to benefit from the funding, companies need to have an international development potential and should preferably have a technological profile or operate in industries with fast growth potential such as: software, cyber security, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, or IT solutions (for various adjacent domains such as healthcare or even agriculture).
Once accepted, companies benefit from a ten-week program consisting of intensive business coaching sessions, mentoring, specialized expertise on the business area of the start-up, as well as marketing services. Also, the 15-20 selected companies as part of the initial phase will receive EUR 25,000 for a 6% stake in the company, and could afterwards be eligible for a second round of investment where they can receive up to EUR 75,000, money that can be converted by investors into shares in the company.
The first round of the program starts on March 31st and applications can be submitted by March 11th 2018.
Sources: techcelerator.ro/2018/02/01/techcelerator-has-officially-launched-on-the-market/ ;
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