Oradea-based startup OptiOffer gets 50,000 EUR in funding as part of the program Make IT in Oradea, a public initiative aimed at promoting and growing the local startup ecosystem. This is the first financing round offered by Make IT in Oradea, less than a year after the program’s launch. Make IT in Oradea is a non-profit organization initiated by Oradea City Hall and Oradea Local Development Agency, together with together with a group of local tech companies.

Make IT in Oradea manages an annual fund of 300,000 EUR through Bright Labs Incubator, a place where technology startup founders can enter their idea in order to receive mentoring and financing. 

OptiOffer is a Supplier – Reseller Platform (SRP), focused on Business to Business transactions, managing price quotes and eCatalogs. It connects suppliers and resellers in order to make selling and buying products more efficient, without having to deal with hundreds of PDF or printed catalogs, price lists and emails. Such a platform brings the Business to Consumer experience to B2B transactions to achieve connected selling and streamlined buying. The platform helps both entrepreneurs and sales people to focus on customer relationships, instead of spending that time to manage catalogs, price quotes and supplier orders. 

“In the sector of professional equipment, in order to create a single price quote, it can take from a few hours, up to a few days, depending on the complexity of the project. Currently, this process is done manually: the salesperson copies the product descriptions, specifications, and prices from PDF catalogs into a Word or Excel document – the price quote. It is a back-and-forth process for many companies, which didn’t improve considerably since the 1990s.”, says Bogdan Boța, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of OptiOffer.

The product is dedicated to small and medium enterprises that sell equipment. These can be either resellers or distributors that are doing B2B selling in industries such as hospitality, green energy, HVAC equipment, and so on.

Make it in Oradea funding process

During the financing process, startups are analyzed in order to qualify as a company with a real potential for growth. A technical and business analysis is performed by the members of the board of Make IT in Oradea, together with other specialists. Next there is a negotiation of the general financing terms and conditions with the founders. After analyzing the company’s documents, and if the conclusions of this analysis are in line with the investors’ expectations, the terms of the actual transaction are negotiated and the financing contract is signed between the parties. This entire process usually takes 3 months.

“Make it in Oradea financing process is done professionally, in collaboration with specialists from the private sector, and is quite standard for the tech industry. Given that we are talking to startups that are facing this process for the first time, it may seem complicated at first glance. We try as much as we can to make it as simple as possible, but at the same time, to make sure that the start-up we are talking about proves the necessary potential and seriousness. It is also a process of educating the founders regarding such transactions, preparing them for discussions with future investment funds and a process that is at least as rigorous.”, says David Achim, Executive Director of Make IT in Oradea.

Oradea, a public example for funding startups

Make IT in Oradea is built on 3 pillars: education, startups and companies. The initiative is aimed at developing, accelerating and promoting the local technology startups ecosystem.

“The role of Make IT in Oradea is to help startups with real market potential to develop and finance their operations from a very early stage, namely pre-seed. It is one of the most difficult moments for the founders and the stage at which there are very few funding options to turn to”, said David Achim.

Oradea’s continuous investment in improving the quality of life of its citizens and in public infrastructure, coupled with the new programs and initiatives aimed at supporting the creation of new startups are setting the city to become one of the most attractive startup hubs in Romania in the near future.

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Make IT in Oradea, and NGO founded by local authorities and companies in Oradea, North-West of Romania, launches the Bright Nights Incubator program for startups, which offers mentoring and funding of up to €50,000 for technology enthusiasts who have innovative business ideas and who want to start a business in Oradea. The program has an annual budget of €300,000, granted by the City Hall.

Oradea’s continuous investment in improving the quality of life of its citizens and in public infrastructure, coupled with new programs and initiatives aimed at supporting the creation of new startups are setting the city to become one of the most attractive startup hubs in Romania. With a highly developed entrepreneurial culture due to its proximity to the border and various historic reasons, having excellent healthcare facilities and offering unique cultural experiences, Oradea’s future may reside in its rather “softer” skills, a combination of business development talent and wellbeing services, complementing the more techy nearby hubs of Cluj and Timișoara.

Make IT in Oradea is a non-profit association founded this fall by local companies Paymo, Helion, Smartware, Mobiversal, Roetco and local authorities, through the Oradea Local Development Agency (ADLO), in collaboration with external partners such as Orange Romania, through the Orange Fab program. The startup incubation program kicked-off on December 4 with a virtual event dedicated to students in Oradea, passionate about technology & eager to start their startup.

Bright Nights Incubator is an an educational and entrepreneurial programme aimed at all technology enthusiasts, young people with ideas or experienced business people, who have an innovative idea that uses modern technologies. The incubation program offers them the opportunity to test their idea and develop it to the stage of financing.

The objective of Make IT in Oradea is to develop the creative industry in the region by setting up innovative startups in the technological sector

The Make IT in Oradea strategy for 2021 aims at developing a local community of IT startups, in three stages: identifying and selecting innovative ideas in the IT field, transforming them into business ideas under the guidance of experienced mentors and, in the final stage, financing each selected business with amounts of up to €50,000. The programme will run each year for a period of approximately 9 months.

• December 2020 – March 2021: Pre-selection stage, in which participants are invited to submit their idea on the platform for one of the idea competitions that will take place in the coming months.
• April – August 2021: Incubation stage, in which the selected teams are guided by mentors and experienced partners, so that the idea to develop to the business stage.
• September 2021: The financing stage, in which the business ideas selected in the final will receive financing of up to €50,000.

In the first phase, those who want to participate are invited to join the Bright Nights Incubator program to present their ideas. Both individuals and teams can join the program. There are no criteria for registration, but each idea entered will be approved in competition, in advance, by the organizers. Due to the current health context, the meetings within the program will take place online.

Additional information and details can be found here: makeitinoradea.ro.

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