Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia: Everything You Need to Know
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Entrepreneurship in Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia: everything you need to know. Entrepreneurship in Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia: everything you need to know. Authors About Nova Universidade NOVA de Lisboa is a public Portuguese education institution with around 20,000 students, 2000 professors and 700 staff members distributed through five faculties, three institutes and one school, providing a variety of courses in several fields of knowledge. NOVA is distinguished by a culture of excellent teacher-student relationship and an intense academic life with many dif- ferent cultural and sport activities. Main authors: Aneesh Zutshi, Tahereh Nodehi About Bar Ilan Bar-Ilan University, founded in 1955, was one of the first comprehensive research universities to be established in Israel. From 70 students to 17,000, its milestone achieve- ments in the sciences and humanities have made an in- delible imprint on the landscape of the nation. The univer- sity has 8 faculties: Jewish Studies, Medicine, Engineering, Law, Life Science, Exact Sciences, Social Sciences, and Hu- manities. These faculties are active partners in national science and technology initiatives. Main authors: Ayelet Sapir, Eyal Yaniv, Eli Even About Nacue NACUE (National Association of College and Universi- ty Entrepreneurs) is committed to advancing education and supporting bespoke solutions in developing greater engagement with students, to encourage the knowledge building of enterprise and entrepreneurship, working with students from diverse backgrounds, providing unique op- portunities to support them in developing the skills they need to succeed. Launched in 2009, NACUE completed a national rollout fo- cusing on the development and sustainability of over 200 enterprise societies driven by young people on a peer-to- peer basis, with the support from the UK Government and corporate backers. Main authors: Till Spanke Contributors About Spherik Accelerator Spherik is the first accelerator launched in Romania whose mission is to connect startups with strategic resources and support the growth of the local ecosystem. About Startup Slovenia Start:up Slovenia is an active facilitator and promoter of public and private stakeholders of the Slovenian startup ecosystem. About CzechInvest CzechInvest, Investment and Business Development Agency, is the Startup Europe Ambassador in the Czech Republic and has the responsibility in National Innovation Strategy 2019-2030 in the terms of National Start-up and Spin-off Environment. Czech Republic is the Country for the future. About Europa Media Europa Media is an independent, non-profit SME active in European Union affairs, in particular in EU research and innovation policies, programmes and projects. Es- tablished in 2003, Europa Media has been working to effectively gather and spread dispersed and complex information on EU policies, funding opportunities and programmes in a streamlined and simplified manner to potential stakeholders in Europe and worldwide. About MY-GATEWAY Startup Europe initiative which aims to strengthen the ca- pacities of high-tech startups and innovative SMEs in the Central and Eastern European region to become better connected, gain higher market exposure and have im- proved, streamlined access to funding opportunities and talent. This report was produced by Nova and Bar Ilan as part of MY-GATEWAY project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and in- novation programme under grant agreement No 780758. Design: Hugin and Munin Global S.L. July 2019 © EuropaMedia 2019. This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike International Li- cence 4.0. Index Interactive index Click on the page numbers to navigate through the document. 1. Understanding the Slovenian, Romanian and Czech startup world. Their differences and their similarities . 08 1.1. Introduction . 09 1.2. Country Overview. 13 1.3. Startup Investment Trend . 20 1.3.1. Financial instruments from EIF in the three selected countries . 21 1.3.2. Traditional and Public Fund Overview . 22 1.3.2.1. Czech Republic . 22 1.3.2.2. Romania . 24 1.3.2.3. Slovenia . 24 1.4. Public policy . 40 1.5. Major Startup Ecosystem Actors . 43 1.6. Talent . 54 1.7. Technological Trends. 61 1.8. Challenges and Opportunities . 64 1.9. Questionnaires data analyses. 66 1.10. Questionnaires data analyses from the CEE countries . 76 1.10.1. Entrepreneurial Perceptions of the Ecosystem . 76 1.10.1.1. Czech Republic . 76 1.10.1.2. Romania . 83 1.10.1.3. Slovenia . 90 1.11. References . 97 2. Startup in the spotlight Interviews to outline perceptions . 103 2.1. Introduction . 104 2.2. Methodology. 105 2.2.1. Sample . 105 2.2.2. Tools . 106 2.2.3. Process . 107 2.3. Conclusions . 109 2.3.1. Central and Eastern European Region. 109 2.3.1.1. Czech Republic . 110 2.3.1.2. Romania . 112 2.3.1.3. Slovenia . 113 2.3.2. Summary . 114 06 3. Mapping the startup ecosystem in Slovenia, Romania and Czech Republic. The general picture . 115 3.1. Introduction . 116 3.2. Theoretical background . 117 3.3. Research design. 118 3.3.1. Questionnaires . 118 3.3.1.1. Sample . 119 3.3.1.2. Tools . 119 3.3.1.3. Process . 119 3.4. Method for mapping the ecosystem . 122 3.4.1. Sample . 122 3.4.2. Tools . 123 3.4.3. Process . 124 3.5. Conclusions . 125 4. Central and Eastern European Startups: Demands and Needs . 126 4.1. Introduction . 127 4.2. Levels of Entrepreneurship Support and Capability Gap . 130 4.2.1. Methodology . 130 4.2.1.1. Demands and Needs of Romanian Startups . 130 4.2.1.2. Demands and Needs of Slovenian Startups . 132 4.2.1.3. Demands and Needs of Czech Startups . 132 4.2.1.4. Overall Demands and Needs of CEE Startups. 133 4.2.2. Support Services and Networks in Place . 135 4.2.2.1. Funding Opportunities . 135 4.2.2.2. Ecosystem Support Services . 138 4.2.2.3. Talent Acquisition. 140 4.2.3. Capability Gaps . 142 4.3. Funding Capability Gaps . 143 4.4. Ecosystem Support Structures Capability Gaps . 144 4.5. Talent Acquisition Capability Gaps . 146 4.6. Potential Solutions to Key Issues . 147 4.6.1. Approaching Funding Capability Gaps . 147 4.6.2. Approaching Ecosystem Support Services Capability Gaps . 148 4.6.3. Approaching Talent Acquisition Capability Gaps . 150 4.7. Conclusions . 151 4.8. References . 153 07 1. UnderstandingtheSlovenian, Romanian and Czech startup world Theirdifferencesandtheir similarities 1.1. Introduction 1.2. Country Overview 1.3. Startup Investment Trend 1.4. Public policy 1.5. Major Startup Ecosystem Actors 1.6. Talent 1.7. Technological Trends 1.8. Challenges and Opportunities 1.9. Questionnaires data analyses 1.10. Questionnaires data analyses from the CEE countries 1.1. Introduction Over the past few years, Europe has seen an unprecedented boom in the Start- up and Technology sector, with various Startup Ecosystems such as Berlin, Am- sterdam and Lisbon seeing unprecedented growth. Europe’s policy makers have realised the strength of Startup Ecosystems in terms of revitalising the economy, create jobs, and develop innovative solutions that will make Europe a global leader. However, now much of the growth focus is shifting from Western Europe to the Eastern Europe which has the unique combination of high-quality tech talent, and comparatively lower costs of operation. The project MY-GATEWAY was designed to focus on spreading the experience of the previous Startup Europe Projects towards the rapidly growing Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries. For this project, three countries were se- lected to be the focus of the activities: Slovenia, Czech Republic and Romania. This report shows an in-depth analysis on the recent Ecosystem trends of the above-mentioned three countries. The research is based on various recent- ly published reports, articles and web resources that led towards a deeper understanding on the various trends in those regions. The current document provides a broad overview of the current level of development of the targeted ecosystems which will be used to define the next chapters of this overarching report. Since much of this report is based on secondary sources of information, diverse sources of information have been included to minimise the bias and to repre- sent as many perspectives as possible. The initial search included analysis of books, papers, reports, whitepapers, news and web blogs. Two major challenges were faced in the process. The first one was related to relevance of the information. Since ecosystems evolve rapidly and the scenario can significantly change within a year, most of the published resources were already obsolete and could not provide a perspective on the current situa- tion. To find out the latest ecosystem trends, research had to be complemented with latest news and blogs published through online mediums. However, such sources often pose the challenge of credibility and authenticity. Hence, dis- cernment was used to keep the balance between credibility of resources while ensuring its relevance. Therefore, most of the resources consulted were not more than two years old. The second issue was the difficulty in making -di rect country comparisons, especially when the information available was very country focussed. Some of the more recent studies focussing on cross country analysis such as the “Startup investment & innovation in EMERGING EUROPE” series by East West Digital News Agency (2018) and Southeast Europe Startup Report by ABC Accelerator Group (2017) provided us with a good basis to make cross country comparisons. Overall more than 80 References were considered in the compiling of this report. MY-GATEWAY Report 2019 09 1.1. Introduction In order to fully understand the perception of those ecosystems from those who live and work in them, ad-hoc questionnaires were prepared and sent to startups. Chapter 2 will look into those questionnaires and their results.