Romanian Tech Startup Association’s (ROTSA) fresh report on the COVID-19’s impact on Romanian tech startups reveals that the pandemic effects were very nonlinear depending on the industry and on the startup size, however over 70% of the startups confirmed that COVID-19 affected their business to some extent. The study also draws an up to date image of the Romanian tech startup profile and highlights some key findings.

“The impact of COVID-19 on Romanian Tech Startups” is the latest research conducted by ROTSA, dedicated to tech startups founded no earlier than 2015. The study wanted to identify the impact, needs and opportunities of tech startups related to COVID-19. Thus, the study aims to highlight how technology startups in Romania adjusted their business strategy and what decisions they took in managing their business. 

The Romanian tech startup profile

The startup ecosystem in Romania started to grow in 2017, when the number of newly founded tech startups tripled compared to the previous year, with the most thriving local tech startup ecosystem being based in Bucharest, followed by Cluj, Timiș and Bihor. It was shown that the highest earners were in Automation (38.1%), Fintech (31.8%) and Marketing (12.1%).

Regarding the tech startup profile, the study revealed that usually the new businesses are locally incorporated, with under 4 years on the market and no more than 4 employees.The annual turnover is of €150K and the biggest employers in domaine such Fintech (35.2%), Automation (35.2%) and Marketing (14.2%).

Regarding the startup’s expansion, the responders of the survey identified France, Spain, Italy and Poland as the main represented markets in Europe, while indicating and pursuing opportunities in markets such as North America and South-East Asia.

The study also looked to find more about the business model used by tech startups. The result showed that a significant part of startups included are providing their services / products to other businesses (B2B, 43%). More than that, the study revealed 1 in 4 startups uses a mixt business model, addressing its services / products to both individual and organizational consumers, while also using subscriptions.

Given that the growth of a startup requires funds, in order to sustain the operations and expansion, for Romanian tech startups, self-financing is the main source of funding, while 36% of them have raised private funds. Due to the lack of information in this area, accessing funds is a main challenge for tech startups. The main need expressed is the access to funding. Be it public or private, the surveyed startups are looking for investments to fund their operations and expansion.

Startup life is very dynamic and requires a lot of stamina, flexibility, vision and capacity to adapt. The pandemic brought not only a lot of challenges and constraints, but also opportunities for medtech startups, fintech or tech startups using AI technologies, revealing also some good examples of reinventing and coming up with new products.

The study was meant not only to look into the past, but also to see a bit in the future, to cherish this growing startup community, the organisations coming together to support the startups and the people behind them.

“We want to help Romanian tech startups in the next period of time to connect on European level, which could be a huge opportunity for regional scaling of business ideas”, said Cristiana Bogățeanu, Executive Director Romanian Tech Startup Association (ROTSA), upon the launch of the report.

The full study can be downloaded from here.

Romanian Tech Startup Association

Romanian Tech Startup Association has risen from the need of bringing together and building a community around technology startups in Romania. Even though the name and public communication were created this year, the organization is assembled on a foundation started in 2010. Since then, the organization has joined as a partner or implemented a series of large-scale projects in the area of ​​entrepreneurship development in Romania.

ROTSA’s vision is to develop and support the ecosystem of technology startups, aiming to become at the same time a connector for its main actors and a link with other already existing international ecosystems. Consequently, the organization has a catalytic role and aims to become the unitary voice of Romanian Technology Startups, built on programs of practical education, transparency, mutual trust, collaboration and knowledge sharing.

The post “The impact of COVID-19 on Romanian Tech Startups” – the newly launched report by ROTSA gathers some interesting findings and draws the Romanian tech startup profile appeared first on Startups&TheCity.

On May the 10th, leading independent startups ecosystem leaders from across the 27 member states, including Cristian Dascalu, Chairman of the Romanian Tech Startups Association, presented the Commissioner Mariya Gabriel their “Action Plan to Make Europe the new Global Powerhouse for Startups“. The initiative, supported by 27 national EU startup organizations, aims to increase the number of unicorns (privately owned companies valued at over $1 billion) tenfold in Europe over the next ten years.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Commissioner Gabriel said “I am convinced that if the ecosystem leaders and the political leaders work together we can build a true Pan-EU Innovation Ecosystem that will help the new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs to scale up and become tech champions to help Europe in a greener and digital covid recovery”.

The May summit marks the first step of a long-lasting partnership as Commissioner Gabriel and the startup ecosystem leaders have committed to meet and measure progress every 6 months.

“We are happy that Romania is an active part of this initiative, that aims at generating European policies from the European Commission towards the member states. It’s a project that reconfirms the interest of the European institutions towards the growth of competitivity in EU, including by increasing the budgets allocated to tech startups. What we, ROTSA, particularly want is to generate a model to support the tech startups from the very beginning through incubation programs – early stage investments – acceleration, that is functional and performant and that can be implemented at national level. This initiative is also a validation of Romania’s incontestable potential in this area”, stated Cristian Dascalu, ROTSA Chairman.

Romanian Tech Startups Association (ROTSA) is a non-profit organization that aims at promoting, supporting, and representing the interest of tech start-ups in Romania. In collaboration with the main actors of the national start-ups ecosystem, ROTSA maps the Romanian tech start-ups to generate data related to the current state and the evolution of tech start-up companies. ROTSA vision is the development and the support of the tech startup ecosystem, at the same time acting as a connector between the main actors and a connection with other international ecosystems. 

Currently, EU boasts more than 80.000 startups, of which 51 are unicorns. The investments raised by European startups totaled 41 billion US dollars in 2020, up from 36,6 billion US dollars in 2019. It has been reported that during Q1 2021 27 innovative European companies got a valuation of more than 1 billion US dollars, based on their latest funding round. At first glance, this is very positive news. However, a closer look reveals that only 7 of them are indeed present in the EU and committed to remain there after the funding round, which paints a much bleaker picture. In the same period, the US produced 67 new unicorns.

The EU initiative includes a list of recommendations covering key areas including education, talent, diversity, tax incentives, stock options, and public procurement. The aim of the group is to provide feedback to the European Commission on how it can further support and promote European startups ecosystems and increase employment, innovation and exports across the EU over the next decade.

The independent group of startup ecosystem leaders, first called upon by Commissioner Gabriel to give voice to the innovation ecosystems in the making of future EU Innovation Policy, consists of: Carlos Mateo (Asociacion Startups), Markus Raunig (AustrianStartups), Charlotte Greant (Startups.be), Dimitar Vasilev (Bulgarian Business Forums), Hajdi Cenan (Croatian AI Association), Stavriana A. Kofteros  (Startup Cyprus), Markéta Přenosilová (CzechInvest), Tomas Mathiesen (Danish Startup Group), Matej Rus (Startup:Slovenia), Maarika Truu and Eve Peeterson (Startup Estonia), Peter Vesterbacka (FinEst Bay Area), Nicolas Brien (France Digitale), Christian Miele (Deutsche Startups), Panos Zamanis (Hellenic Startup Association), Csongor Biás (Startup Hungary), Martina Fitzgerald (Scale Ireland), Giorgio Ciron (InnovUp), Olga Barreto Goncalves (Latvian Startup Association StartinLV), Roberta Rudokiene (Startup Lithuania), Elodie Trojanowski (Fédération Luxembourgeoise des Startups),  Simon Azzopardi (Silicon Valletta), Tomasz Snazyk (Startup Poland), Simon Schaefer (Startup Portugal), Cristian Dascalu (Romanian Tech Startups Association), Michal Kardos (Slovak Alliance for Innovation Economy), Arash Sangari (Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth) and Constantijn van Oranje (Special Envoy at Techleap.nl).

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