Vlad AndriescuThe documentary, "Romanian Startups: Roaring Tigers of Europe," spans across 33 years of history, from the first entrepreneurs in the transitional years to the initial technology company transactions that brought Romania into the international spotlight.
The movie is a start-up.ro production, one of the most important media platforms writing about entrepreneurship in Romania, VideoCorp and InternetCorp.
In the 6 chapters of the documentary, start-up.ro journalists Oana Coșman and Florin Cașotă chronicle the years in which the most important players in the startup industry emerged. Roaring Tiger of Europe covers the technological entrepreneurial history under six directions: The Inspired, The Inspiration, The Sparks, The Capital & the Knowledge, The Rising Stars, The Present, and The Future.
To create the documentary, the journalists conducted over 60 interviews with entrepreneurs, startup founders, as well as individuals who created the first venture capital investment funds, angel investors, and business accelerators and incubators.
From the 70 hours of filming, the team managed to compress a 2-hour documentary covering 33 years of history and change.
Among the documentary's interviewees, journalist Oana Coșman spoke with Marius Ghenea - the creator of Flamingo Computers, one of the first computer distributors in Romania, now the managing partner for Catalyst Romania, the first venture capital fund born in our country; Radu Georgescu - one of the first entrepreneurs who saw the potential of a technology company in the early days of internet access in Romania. In 1994, he created RAV Antivirus, a company acquired by Microsoft in 2003. He started in '92 with Gecad Net and later moved on to creating Avangate and other technology companies; Florin and Măriuca Talpeș - among the first entrepreneurs after '89 who understood that Romania could grow through technology. In 1990, they started Softwin, a business that 11 years later became synonymous with one of their products, Bitdefender, a company that now has clients in 170 countries and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange.
The documentary originated from journalist Oana Coșman's desire to provide the most integrated understanding of a recently developing ecosystem and to inspire founders looking towards Silicon Valley with admiration.
"The documentary is not a story about a dream; it is an account of the hard work behind what many thought was impossible. Being an entrepreneur in the '90s was considered madness. Talking about startups in the 2000s seemed like a joke. However, there were a few people who turned entrepreneurship into a respectable term and brought the idea of startups to reality. The documentary is their story. It is proof of the work and passion that is not visible in Excel sheets. And perhaps Romania is not yet a regional leader, but it has been called the tiger of CEE, and growth and innovation are now not a meow, but a true roar," says Oana Coșman, the initiator and creator of the project alongside Florin Cașotă, who directed the movie.
