It’s been a year full of accomplishments, with some challenges we had to face and so many beautiful experiences. Our focus has been towards strengthening partnerships with the local and regional ecosystem builders, and knowledge transfer from outside Romania, into the country. Here’s some of the year’s highlights for Spherik.

Acceleration:

KPMG Startup Grow Pad – the B2B acceleration program developed by KPMG Romania and Spherik Accelerator, had hosted it’s Demo Night on March 7, in Bucharest.

The program was launched in 2018 with the aim to help startups find the right resources and support to grow, through a strategic partnership with KPMG Romania. Following a six months collaboration period, Nifty Learning, iFactor, Jobful, Box2m and SYT.app – the 5 startups in the program have presented their progress to an audience of investors, corporates and startup ecosystem builders from Romania and abroad.

The open call for the 2nd Edition of KPMG Startup Grow Pad was launched in September 2019 and applicants are now in the reviewing process. In the beginning of 2020 we’ll announce the next startups that will be selected to join the program.

European Projects:

1. My Gateway project is a Startup Europe initiative which aims to strengthen the capacities of high-tech startups and innovative SMEs in the Central and Eastern European region to become better connected, gain higher market exposure and have improved, streamlined access to funding opportunities and talent. On the 2nd year of implementation, we have strengthened the collaboration with local partners via Startup Europe Week, have contributed to connecting the local ecosystem builders to the European startup scene by facilitating the organization of the Startup Europe Summit in Romania, which also helped bring awareness to the startups community from the local authorities. 

Project partners: Europa Media (Hungary, project coordinator), Nova – Research & Development Unit (Portugal), Bar Ilan University (Israel), Universidad de Salamanca (Spain), Startups Belgium (Belgium), Nacue (UK), European Young Innovators Forum (Belgium), Spherik (Romania), Start:up Slovenia (Slovenia), CzechInvest (Czech Republic) & Hugin & Munin (Spain).

Startup Europe Ambassador in Romania – 

• Startup Europe Week 2019, March 11-15, 2019 (Iasi, Piatra Neamt, Cluj) – 250 cities connected by a single event across the EU with 400 simultaneous actions. As Startup Europe Ambassador, we have partnered with Startup Grind Iasi, Rubik Hub and Startup Weekend Cluj to bring Startup Europe Week to Romania in a series of startup dedicated events. 
• Startup Europe Summit 2019, Cluj (Romania), March 21-22, 2019 – A high level European policy event powered by the Startup Europe Network and co-organized by the EU Commission and the Romanian authorities as part of the Romanian EU Council Presidency series of events. Its purpose was to address the main pain points of startups launching and growing in the Eastern European countries.

Via My Gateway project, 17 startups from Romania, Czech Republic and Poland had the chance to attend the event and participate in the pitching competition. My Gateway consortium partners have also organized a Summit side event workshop, to communicate the future steps of the Startup Europe Networks in the CEE and WB Regions.

Access2Finance Workshops – Access2Finance Workshops were organized by MY-GATEWAY consortium partners in Prague, Maribor and Bucharest to provide an insight on the available financial instruments and subsidies for startups, and cover the entire range of existing support mechanisms. 

• SWCSummit, Prague (Czech Republic), April 9-10, 2019 – The first workshop was organized by CzechInvest, in partnership with Startup World Cup & Summit. Seven startups were part of My Gateway delegation, 2 of which are Romanian (Thanky and Nothistimepal).
• Podim, Maribor (Slovenia), May 21-22, 2019 – The second workshop from the series was organized by our partners Start:up Slovenia during Podim conference. Nine Romanian startups have attended the conference with all the costs covered and have received access to tailored 1:1 networking activities, as well as the chance to pitch to investors and corporates present at the event, to present their products. 
• Upgrade 100, Bucharest (Romania), June 13-14, 2019 – During the 2nd day of Upgrade100 Spherik has organized an Access2Finance full day event on Stage 4, as part of My Gateway project. The participants got the chance to learn about the secrets of the European startup ecosystem, working with angel investors, how to access European funding for your startup & much more.

Startup Funding Training Courses – The courses have covered both public and private types of funding for startups. During the workshop startups had the chance to learn about the local funding opportunities & different types of capital, discuss the process of fundraising and its possible alternatives, getting familiar with the right ways to pitch in front of investors and how they can benefit from the Startup Europe opportunities.

• On September 26th, the first course took place in Cluj-Napoca, hosted by Liberty Technology Park. It was presented by Krisztina Toth – Project coordinator for MY-GATEWAY project & Senior Project Manager @ Europa Media, and Mircea Vadan – founder @ Activize and Cluj Startups.
• Organized as a How to Web pre-event, the second course was held on October 28th, at Impact Hub Universitate, in Bucharest. The course was presented by Krisztina Toth, and Marius Ghenea – Partner @ 3TS Capital Partners.

Knowledge transfer and access to the European market – We brought startups to tech events in Europe, to facilitate their access to market, networking and meeting with investors.

• Startup Ole, Salamanca (Spain), March 26-28, 2019 – 19 CEE startups have joined My Gateway team in Salamanca this year. We have facilitated meetings with relevant stakeholders for everyone of them. Most of the startups from the My Gateway delegation were selected to participate in the pitching competition.
• Slush, Helsinki (Finland), November 21-22, 2019 – My Gateway delegation had 11 startups (2 of which were Romanian), who all have received tickets to the conference and access to side events organized by the European Commision and other partners.

Hitchhiker´s Guide on Procurement Opportunities for Startups was launched in December 2019, the last month of implementing the project. It explores the existing opportunities for public and private procurements in Romania. Due to the administrative and regulatory barriers, procurement opportunities are not being fully utilized by Romanian startups at this moment. 

2. Data Market Services is a project developed through the Horizon2020 Research and Innovation Programme. It has started in January and is supporting the most promising data-centric companies in the EU Member States. The main goal of the project is to transform the European startup ecosystem and help it overcome the barriers of data-centric SMEs and startups in data skills and entrepreneurial opportunities. In order to support the ecosystem, the Data Market Services brings together twelve free support services in five categories (fundraising, acceleration, standards & legal, promotion and data skills). These services have been provided to 50 European data-based companies in the 2019 cohort, and 100 more will benefit from the project in 2020 and 2021. 

During the first year of the project, 26 webinars were delivered, alongside individual mentorship, investors matchmaking sessions and live trainings. The services are grouped into 5 categories, such as fundraising, acceleration, standards and legal, promotion and data skills. The next open call is coming in spring.

Project partners:  ZABALA Innovation Consulting (Spain, project coordinator), Bright Pixel (Portugal), Spherik (Romania), Spinlab (Germany), The Next Web (the Netherlands), Ogilvy (Spain), Southampton Data Science Academy and European Data Science Academy (EDSA), IPTECTOR (Denmark) & W3C (through ERCIM in France).

3. B-Hub for Europe was one of the 6 projects selected to be implemented, out of 46 proposals submitted in 2019. It was selected in the framework of Horizon Europe’s call ICT 33, organized by Startup Europe, a department of the DG Connect. The program will start in January 2020 and will last for 2 years. It aims to build on the potential and excellence of European blockchain high-growing innovations. 

Project partners:  Innova (Italy, project coordinator), Cube GbmH (Germany), Spherik (Romania), Startup Division (Lithuania), and Systematic Paris Region (France).

***

Aside from the above, Spherik’s team has contributed to 20+ conferences this year, sharing knowledge about innovation and startups, women in tech, policy (at European and local level) and much more. We’re grateful to all our partners for their collaboration and cooperation and are looking forward to an extraordinary 2020.

To stay up to date with relevant news about Spherik and other resources available for startups and the entrepreneurial community,  join our newsletter. You’ll receive a monthly email with a curated list of Romanian and international updates and opportunities.