Oana Coșman
The goal of the program is to identify and develop 200 startups through entrepreneurship education programs in the next three years and provide them access to investors, accelerators, universities and media institutions in the region.
The accepted teams into the program will be announced on September 14th, 2022.
“We see in Romania and in the CEE more and more ideas with global potential, enthusiastic and courageous entrepreneurs willing to fight for their vision and to dedicate all their resources to create value, to solve burning problems, to change industries for the better, to accelerate the transformation of our lives, thus putting another brick in our evolution. Everyone needs the right resources to develop their ideas sustainably. The good news is that there are financial resources, the even better news is that we dedicate our energy to building the best investment opportunities, thus supporting those who contribute to developing these opportunities. We have access to the necessary tools, and we just need to aggregate them in a transparent, easy and accessible way. This is our goal at Startup Reaktor", says Ovidiu Ghiman, Chairman of the Board & Co-founder Ronin.
Startup Reaktor - a program for all early-stage/idea stage start-ups in CEE
Startup Reaktor is for all the early-stage teams or start-ups, no matter whether they have reached the stage of MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Applying teams must not have already established a legal entity for the project.The team or start-up can register just one project.
“This platform has a significant competitive advantage: it provides a framework through which the founders can test and validate the problem their business would solve. We often meet entrepreneurs who do not test their proposed ideas enough and often validate them only with family and friends. Through this platform, which to some may resemble an external MBA program, we want entrepreneurs to realize if their solution is one for which there is a demand, to go through the questions that a founder should ask himself and especially to experience all the situations they might encounter in business. We strongly believe that through this education based on experimentation, we can constantly create new and new generations of start-ups that can obtain funding and that can develop internationally“, says Tudor Pasc, Incubation Director at ROTSA.
The evaluation criteria of the projects are: the composition and expertise of the team, the business model, the impact of the solution on the clients, the innovativeness of the solution and the way of developing the solution.
Mentors from Central and Eastern Europe
Entrepreneurs will learn for ten weeks how to validate their idea, to develop and validate an MVP, legal aspects of starting a business, how to define and analyze their competition, to create a marketing plan, how to obtain financing, how to access programs for growing and how to expand internationally. Entrepreneurs will have access to practical examples, case studies and the support of experienced mentors from Central and Eastern Europe.
The incubator team involves members of the national community who work mainly in the start-up ecosystem and ambassadors in each of the targeted countries.
Startups may belong to any industry, such as: AdTech, AgriTech, Car service / marketplace, Cloudtech and DevOps, Commercial space mission, Crypto / Blockchain, Cybersecurity, Data, Ecommerce, Edtech, Energy, Environment Tech, Field Service, Fintech, Foodtech, Gaming, Hardware Prototype, HealthTech, HR Tech, Industry 4.0, Insurtech, Investing platform, IoT, Legal Tech, Marketing Tech, MedTech, Mobile Apps for all verticals, Online on-demand home services, Product management, PropTech, R&D automotive, Retail Techs, Robotics, Saas, Smart City, Social Marketplace, Software robots, Space, Tourism Technology, Transport, VR / AR, Wearables.
The timeline for the first edition of Startup Reaktor
June 27 - September 1: registration of projects in the program
September 1-14: Checking applicants eligibility and interviews
September 14: Announcing the admitted participants for the incubator;
September 15 - December 5: Entrepreneurial education program and modular mentoring;
December 8: Special event with guests from the EEC start-up ecosystem;
December 15: Demo pitching day & feedback;
January 15 - April 15, 2023: After-programme funding opportunities.
"We know that there are ambitious young people in the region who want to contribute and be part of projects with impact. We know that many choose to grow professionally in more developed western countries, in the USA or Asia. If in the past Romania and the CEE and EEA region were poor in opportunities for wannabe founders, today things have changed for the better. Through Startup Reaktor, we propose a valuable and relevant offer: entrepreneurship from your country. We offer support and the optimal framework from the beginning to those who are seriously thinking of setting up a startup and developing a product with potential, a focused agenda that finds out what a business needs to grow, become sustainable and to have success", states Cristina Țoncu, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Techcelerator.
