SEERC, the research centre of the International Faculty of the University of Sheffield - CITY College in Thessaloniki, supported the participation of Greek start-ups at the Balkan Venture Forum (BkVF) in Jahorina near Sarajevo in Bosnia & Herzegovina on 15-16 May 2014. A total of six start-ups from various parts of Greece performed strongly in a highly competitive pitching contest at the 5th edition of the successful Balkan Venture Forum, which is held bi-annually throughout the region of South-East Europe. The BkVF was preceded by a Venture Academy at the brand-new start-up hub ‘HUB 387’ in Sarajevo where international expert coaches prepared the start-ups for next days’ pitching contest. Although the adverse weather conditions with up to half a meter of snow in the area limited the final number of participants the Forum was a full success. Besides the high-quality pitches, the Forum provided for the more than 150 participants from all across South-East Europe and beyond compelling discussion panels and inspiring speeches by high-level investors and experts, such as Christian Thaler-Wolski from Wellington Partners, Stephane Gantchev from LauncHub, Selma Prodanovic from Brainswork and others, as well as a high-level policy meeting and an investor workshop.
The start-up companies from Greece participating at the Forum were:
· L’Arachnie Games Studios (Manos Laskarakis), Alexandroupolis: Customized games for commercial use in the B2B2C markets
· JoinCargo (Eleni Roxani Koutsolouka), Athens: Online transport platform to make logistics more efficient
· TheCityGame (Fotis Merakos), Athens: App to empower users to perform good actions for the environment and society
· Navideck (Fotis Dimanidis), Thessaloniki: Co-driver app aiming to redefine in-car entertainment experience
· Hospitus (Stratos Vlasakidis), Thessaloniki: Personalized query services for (business) travelers and direct sales leads for hotels
· Gastronomiks (Mark Lammers), Athens: Changing the culinary fabric by supplying special R&D know-how to SMEs in the food sector
The next BkVF will be held in Slovenia in November 2014.
Balkan Venture Forum is one of the main objectives of the SEE Programme project VIBE (Venture Initiative in Balkan Europe) and is being co-financed by the European Union.
VIBE (www.vibeproject.eu) is an EU funded project in the framework of the ‘SEE Transnational Cooperation Programme’ with the primary objective to support facilitation of innovation and entrepreneurship in the region of South-East Europe. VIBE aims at fostering the creation and growth of innovative SMEs and start-up companies through a large array of actions. SEERC (www.seerc.org) is the Greek partner in the VIBE project.
