Greece’s start-up ecosystem is changing significantly with the operation of the egg hub, a Eurobank initiative for multi-level support of innovative business activity that has been in operation for 12 years.
Egg is currently the most recognized and comprehensive business accelerator in Greece, helping new business efforts in the most crucial steps of their development, and has also been recognized by the Financial Times as a leading start-up hub in Europe.
Key strategies
Explaining the three main strategies implemented by egg, Eurobank’s Head of Venture Banking Unit, Roula Bachtalia, told “N” the following: “In order for this ecosystem (of start-ups) to grow, three things are needed: 1) to help the start-ups that already exist, with networking, consulting, etc., 2) to find all the research groups that exist in universities and private institutions that are not yet spin-offs and 3) to find start-ups from abroad that are interested in expanding in Greece.
” The impact of egg is particularly great, while it is constantly evolving as it has developed active extroversion. Indicatively, 17 business trips have been carried out for 83 companies – including a visit to MIT – to 11 innovation ecosystems abroad through the extroversion program.
More specifically:
- 460 business groups joined the egg Platforms
- 230 business groups now have a legal form (companies)
- 380 people hired (part-time and/or permanent employment)
- 1,600 young entrepreneurs hosted at egg
- 61 companies have filed patents
- 49.2 million euros in turnover of 159 companies from egg alumni
- 130 synergies between egg alumni companies
Regarding financing:
55.7 million euros in investments from private investment funds (equity funding – Funds/Business Angels) to 76 egg companies
3.3 million euros in financing from Eurobank to 51 egg companies (use of financial instruments for working capital and investments in fixed assets)
75 thousand euros in Eurobank cash prizes to egg startups
The egg platforms
The egg consists of three distinct and complementary entrepreneurship support platforms, the “Pre-Acceleration” platform, the “Acceleration” platform, and the “Post-Acceleration” platform.
Pre-Acceleration: ad hoc entrepreneurship support actions at very early stages (idea/concept) such as: short-term support actions for research and academic groups (networking and support events for international business groups, open innovation competitions (hackathons). In this phase, 100 research groups with 286 members from the research community were supported, while 22 Greek Universities & Research Institutions have entered into a collaboration with egg.
Acceleration: systematic entrepreneurship support actions aimed at business groups or start-ups with early business ideas or in the early stages of their development or at more advanced startups seeking acceleration of their product development, increased sales and/or (next) round of financing.
Post-Acceleration: support actions for (more) mature innovative entrepreneurship for businesses of all sizes, which either they are members of networks-clusters of businesses in specific sectors of the economy, or, in general, they are innovative businesses of the Greek and/or international ecosystem, which are in an expansion/development phase (growth stage) and are seeking synergies for business networking and raising significant amounts of investment capital (Series-A and above).
