Tuesday I had the pleasure to represent ROCA X at the hashtag#tigersummit2025
– https://lnkd.in/dea4drfD and, at the invitation of the start-up.ro team, to share the stage with Robert Herscovici – GapMinder VC, Dan Calugareanu – Early Game Ventures, Bogdan Iordache– Underline Ventures, Malin-Iulian Stefanescu VP and Marius Istrate, President of TechAngels Romania in a panel about “Who finances innovation?”
We touched upon the fact that the current geopolitical events are changing the innovation landscape. On one hand we have more push on the European side to become competitive, which should mean more support for innovation, but at the same time we no longer have a global market, rather a fragmented one with more barriers like tariffs and nationalism making scaling more difficult and valuations smaller.
Locally, as we see from our recently launched edition of the hashtag#confidex study https://lnkd.in/gunc98gT , entrepreneurs seem to be mentally prepared for a recession and are playing for about a year already the wait and see game, meaning not only less investments, but also less investments in adopting innovation which translates in harder traction for early stage companies in the near future.
And although the horizon seems cloudy, I do believe that if the Romanian authorities will finally consider innovation and value-added products a priority, the private ecosystem is already collaborating extensively to support the desired growth.
hashtag#startupventures hashtag#innovation hashtag#InvestimInRomania