What a ride this year has been. It’s so easy to lose sight of all the growing amid the mundane, this is why we decided to take a look back and remember all the good that happened and what it meant for Spherik and our team.

Challenging, as for all of us, 2020 did its best at teaching us to adapt. Being part of the tech ecosystem might have been easier than for others , yet it was different and it felt exhausting at times to adjust so quickly to new ways of doing things.

Even so, we did our best to stick to the initial plans and the pandemic did not stop us to pursue our long-planned goals. We launched a new European program focused on the blockchain ecosystem, launched two open calls for startups, had over 350 applications for our acceleration programs, worked with 80+  startups, organised a few online meetups and training sessions and also had some changes in the structure and the management of the organization, with Cristina Juc being appointed as Executive director a few months into the year.

Highlights of the year 

As surprising as this year has been on every level, Spherik’s team had the opportunity to grow and expand. Five new members have joined the team and there was a lot to learn and share among each other and within the community.

Going “fully online” has allowed us to extend our reach in an easier way and to connect with even a broader community. Spherik is now part of the EU – India Innovation Partnership (EIIP) and Africa – Europe Innovation Partnership (AEIP) communities. The EIIP initiative aims to foster innovation cooperation between India and Europe, to enhance knowledge transfer and technology development aiming at actions strengthening cooperation between European and Indian industries and start-up ecosystems.

The AFIP aims to support and connect innovation and technology incubators and accelerators in tapping into new markets, find trusted partners across the Mediterranean as well as build new perspectives, knowledge and networks. This allows startups and SMEs to engage in (new) business opportunities by providing support, guidance, mentorships and coaching, as well as access to essential network contacts.

This comes to strengthen Spherik’s position as an important actor in the Romanian innovation ecosystem, adding to the organization’s important role as Startup Europe Ambassador in Romania. It allows us to unlock and offer more opportunities towards the Romanian startup and tech community.

Acceleration

KPMG Startup GrowPad is an initiative created in partnership with KPMG Romania. The program is aimed at the startups focusing on process automation, robotic assistance, augmented analysis, cyber security, intelligent and analytical applications (data), in industries where KPMG has expertise and clients, such as IT, telecom, financial services, real estate, B2B professional services, consumer markets, legal, compliance and regulatory services.

1. At the beginning of the year we announced the two startups selected for the second edition of Startup GrowPad program. Over 50 startups expressed their interest to join the program and both Humano and 22Trust Venture have passed into the next stage and began their collaboration with KPMG at the beginning of February.

2. Between June and September 2020 we have hosted a series of 3 online webinars in partnership with KPMG Romania on various topics of interest in the actual context of the pandemic, concerning the tech and business world.

• Changes in the HR industry –  a webinar focused on the changes that happened in the HR industry during the first months of the lockdown. The speakers approached topics such as how are the HR departments organizing the remote work, what are the latest challenges for the HR startups, and also which opportunities can appear for startups in the HR field in the actual context.
• Entrepreneurial mindset from a legal perspective was focused on the legal side of entrepreneurship. The guests approached topics such as protection of trade secrets, IP portfolio management, contract management and data protection, and much more.
• Designing New CX/UX Paths for Clients in the New Reality: in the last webinar of the series, we discussed the topics of CX and UX, with focus on designing new CX/UX paths for clients being pushed to (not choosing) digital channels of interaction in the new reality. 

3. KPMG Startup Grow Pad Alumni had their own milestones to achieve this year and below are some of their highlights.

Jobful, an HR startup, has closed an investment round of €250K in June 2020. A few months on, the startup launched a new financing round on SeedBlink, aiming to change the recruitment industry, inspired by the concerning statistics in this sector. The initial set target was overfunded by 50K. This was the first time that the platform listed a bridge to a subsequent Series A funding. 

European Innovation Programs

B-Hub for Europe is a project funded by the European Commission, through Horizon2020, under the Startup Europe umbrella. The main objective of the program is to connect the blockchain innovation ecosystems. It contributes to blockchain ecosystem development by leveraging European technological excellence and supporting the growth of businesses that are integrating blockchain in their products and solutions.

• In February 2020 we launched the project in Romania during The after-hype reality of blockchain in Romania event, in Bucharest, alongside experts in the field. This was officially the last “real event” we hosted or participated in, this year.
• An open call for European blockchain-focused startups and SMEs has been announced in June 2020. Following the selection process, 30 startups have been selected into the B-hub for Europe acceleration program.

• The mapping and monitoring activities of the European blockchain ecosystem, conducted in the 5 countries represented by the consortium lead to the creation of 68 startup sheets on  B-Hub for Europe’s website. Some of the Romanian data we have at the moment:
  • The Romanian blockchain ecosystem has approximately 50 strongly developed blockchain startups, 8 blockchain associations, around 20 blockchain communities and 10 dedicated events annually; 
  • Most of the ecosystem is based on the developers and software agencies that were early adopters of the technology; 
  • The strongest area utilizing blockchain is the financial sectors, followed by a growing trend in health and supply chain;
  • The most active blockchain clusterings are overlapping with the general software development centres, like Bucharest, which usually hosts half of the startups in any area, followed by Cluj, Iasi, Timișoara, Brasov and Sibiu.
• A series of articles focused on blockchain use cases have been published on B-hub for Europe’s blog. Some of the first use cases that are available for consulting are related to:
  • Notarization, timestamping and tamper-proof records;
  • Traceable ownership records for secondary market trading of digital assets;
  • Peer-to-peer consumers energy management and trading platform;
  • Digital platform for ecommerce payment transactions with crypto currency;
  • Incentivization of health data sharing;
  • Verifiable origin for consumer goods.
• As part of the Building the Market & Boosting the Demand activities, we’ve organized a series of trainings for the Romanian private and public sectors, during the months of September and October. The main goal of these activities is to raise awareness about blockchain technology outside the tech bubble in order to increase adoption by solving industries’ specific challenges. Pre-registration for the next training sessions is open. 

More about the project and steps for next year can be found in a comprehensive article One year into B-hub for Europe: what have we achieved?

Data Market Services is a European project developed through the Horizon2020 Research and Innovation Programme supports the most promising data-centric companies in the EU Member States. The main goal of the project, now known under the name of DMS Accelerator, is to transform the European startup ecosystem and help it overcome the barriers of data-centric SMEs and startups in data skills and entrepreneurial opportunities.

• The second open call for startups was launched in March 2020. Over 200 European startups and SMEs have expressed interest in joining the program, out of which 50 were selected to enter the program’s 2nd batch.The applicants came from 14 various sectors of activity, with the two main sectors being: Healthcare & Artificial Intelligence, followed by Smart Cities & Transport, and Retail & Manufacturing.
• In November, 12 of the startups from this year’s program pitched their solutions to investors and a wider audience during DMS Investors Day. The event was part of the DMS Investor week, where a selected group of investors had the chance to review startups’ portfolios and join the matchmaking sessions.

Other news and resources

With most of the events this year moving online, it was easier to connect and learn from the other ecosystems. We’ve been travelling virtually all over Europe and not only, presenting and representing the Romanian startup ecosystem during various conferences and hackathons. 

Just to mention a few of them:  the #EUvsVirus innovation hackathon (Pan-european), #StartupsKilltheVirus (Spain), Antreprenoriatul și piața muncii în prezent (Cluj), Totul despre programele locale pentru startups (Bucharest), How to design an online acceleration program (Greece), Cluj Innovation Days (Cluj), 2NHack 2020 (Bucharest), Startup ecosystem landscapes by Womenpreneurs Balkans (Macedonia), Legal Accelerators (Cluj),  and many more. 

As part of the long-term strategy to become an innovation platform, aimed at supporting innovation in key domains, Spherik marked its first step towards its mission by investing in Telios, alongside Transylvania Angels Network, Growceanu, TechAngels Romania, and 2 foreign investors, an investment fund from the Netherlands and a private investor from Belgium.

Alongside the work they are doing as part of the Spherik’s team, our colleagues are involved in a lot of other activities, as they have a lot of skills and experience to share. Some of the resources 

• Interested in EU funding for innovative tech companies? Our colleague Ecaterina is ready to offer help and expertise in this area.
• Mircea and his colleagues at Activize are sharing a lot of insights about the Romanian market and startup ecosystem via comprehensive reports and analysis published on the Activize blog.
• To give a better understanding of financial management and accounting for early stage businesses owners and not only, Madalina shares from her own experience in a series of articles about the way financials work in a company.
• His work ethics and business creativity got Valentin featured on Lemlist. In case there’s someone struggling with the sales process and getting new business deals, Valentin is the person to go to. 

All in all, 2020 was a beautiful and challenging year. This was the perfect time to find new ways of moving forward, against odds and uncertainty. And of course, one of the most important lessons learnt by far is to not underestimate people’s ability to adapt. After all, 2020 laid the foundation to a rapid shift towards a more digitalized world, let’s see what we can do with it further. 

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