Jun 19, 2024

17 years on from the country’s devastating debt crisis, Greece’s tech and startup ecosystem is maturing. We hear from four Greek founders on what it’s been like scaling up 6 min read Life has indeed become easier — in some respects — for Greek founders. A more established ecosystem means more people to bounce ideas off, and more support in the form of government programmes, EU funding and VC dollars. Entrepreneurs coming back to Greece after stints in Europe or the Americas have also created a global network for founders to tap into. According to Endeavor Greece, the Greek tech ecosystem consists of over a thousand startups that have a combined value of more than $12bn. Still, Greek founders have had to contend with a dip in funding, a brain drain and the aftermath of a devastating debt crisis. Advertisement Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos, cofounder and CEO of DeepSea Technologies Kyriakopoulos left Greece at 17 to study in the UK. He cofounded DeepSea Technologies, a maritime tech company that uses AI to make ships more efficient, in 2017. The company was acquired by the Japanese multinational Nabtesco in 2023. “In the beginning, I ran the company from Cambridge but I moved back to Greece permanently in 2020. We set up here because we believed most of our customers would be in Greece, and we thought the talent would be cheap. Both assumptions turned out not to be true. Most of our revenue actually comes from Norway, Singapore, Germany and Ireland, although we do also have a lot of customers in Greece. Greece is a talent hub for shipping related industries and there are very few places where you can find that knowledge combined with technical expertise. We have found really good people here — there’s a great neural network department at the Technical University of Crete. But if you’re hiring really talented people, there is an international rate for it. Greece is a talent hub for shipping-related industries and there are very few places where you can find that knowledge combined with technical expertise. Our competitors in the US, for example, fail because they don’t understand the customers and they don’t understand the market. Everyone we’ve hired has some connection with the sea.” Emilia Molimpakis, CEO and cofounder of thymia Molimpakis grew up in Greece but left at 21 to study in the UK. In 2020, she cofounded thymia, an online platform that accurately and objectively assesses mental health issues, starting with depression. The startup has since raised a £2.7m seed round, led by Kodori Ventures, and a further £1.1m via Crowdcube. “We’re based in the UK but we do serve clients globally, including Europe, Canada, Latin America, India and the US. We’re currently working with companies in Greece who offer mental wellness assessments to their employees but we need to get more strongly embedded with the healthcare system before we’ll set up an outpost there. University is so difficult to get through that it creates high perseverance and really strong entrepreneurs, by default. We were studying maths and science at high school that is covered during the first year of university in the UK. There’s a lot of talent. When we spoke to the Greek VCs, we had outgrown them very quickly, even at pre-seed. The tech ecosystem is evolving and growing quite rapidly, compared to a few years ago. But to be honest, I don’t think the funding in Greece is going fast enough to enable startups to grow at the speed they need. Plus the valuations are really low. When we spoke to the Greek VCs, we had outgrown them very quickly, even at pre-seed. The valuations were half what they were elsewhere.” George Chatzigeorgiou, CEO and cofounder of Skroutz Chatzigeorgiou founded Skroutz in Athens in 2005. The online marketplace is the fourth most visited site in Greece, and has plans to expand into Romania, Bulgaria and the wider Balkans. In 2020, CVC Capital Partners invested an undisclosed amount. “I’m an engineer, not an entrepreneur. But I was passionate about creating things. Starting Skroutz was almost accidental. We had no business plan and there weren’t really any VCs, or ways to get funding. We built the company slowly, just focusing on the product. After four or five years, we realised we could no longer afford to be the geeks in front of the computer. We started behaving like it was a real business in 2009. Greece is a bit of a favourite child of Europe right now, which is odd because we’ve gone from the most hated to one that has potential. During the financial crisis, Greece wasn’t a good place to be. We were lucky enough not to be directly affected but no one knew what was going to happen the next day and a lot of people left the country. We started to see signs of people returning in 2018 and during the pandemic. We have benefitted from their international experience, hiring people from Deliveroo, Google, Spotify and Shopify. This helps the ecosystem a lot. Advertisement Greece is a bit of a favourite child of Europe right now, which is odd because we’ve gone from the most hated to one that has potential.” Maria Dunford Founder and CEO, Lifebit Biotech Ltd Dunford founded Lifebit Biotech Ltd in the UK in 2017. The company, which democratises access to biomedical data, has a team of 150 people across Europe, Singapore and the US. In 2021, Lifebit raised $60m in a Series B round, led by Tiger Global. “The typical joke about Greece is that the main thing we export is smart people. Every Greek family puts a big emphasis on education, so 90% of the population has higher education. It’s very unique in that way, and that creates a good work ethic. The challenge is that Greece is a very bureaucratic country. A lot of the logistics of setting up a company have been difficult to manage but the current government is really pushing to simplify that process. It can be hard to find experienced talent in Greece, particularly in our field. There’s nowhere they can get experience and startups can’t afford to train them for two years — we’re just too small. That means these very bright young people have to leave the country. Our office in Athens has 25 people who are front- and back-end engineers, operational people, marketing and sales. They’re not in specialised roles — we have to hire those people from Cambridge, Oxford or a London-based institution. It can be hard to find experienced talent in Greece, particularly in our field. Our big goal for this year is to expand so that our data network represents half a billion patients across the world. That will include expanding the software capability needed to handle and analyse this data. We’ll be relying on our Greek team to achieve that, and expanding the Athens office further to meet those objectives.” For more on Greece’s tech scene, including the top scaleups in the country to watch, take a look at Sifted’s new report, Greeking out 2.0 , sponsored by Endeavor Greece. Advertisement