They say that among 5 Greeks one can count up to 6 different opinions. Teamwork and team-spirit are qualities that the Greek business ecosystem (and maybe the Greek society at large) lacks to this day.
That said, things are starting to change.
It might have taken three years since the February 2012 event, but finally a number of stakeholders joined forces to create HeBAN, the Greek advocacy organization for early stage investments.
StartTech, for one, welcomes this new development. After all, not only we’ve been promoting early stage investments in Greece from our very early days, but our CEO and HeBAN co-founder, Dimitris Tsingos, an EBAN member since 2009, has championed the cause in both Greece and Europe, by organizing events, talking to policy makers, and working with prominent European investors, entrepreneurs, institutions and organizations.
While HeBAN will issue its official announcement at the end of May, there was an opportunity which could not be missed. On early May, three of HeBAN’s co-founders participated in EBAN’s annual congress in Eindhoven.
Panagiotis Ketikidis, Andreas Baresel-Bofinger and Dimitris Tsingos were there to deliver a loud message from Greece’s early stage investors: we are here to take the risks of creating the entrepreneurship success stories needed to bring the country back to growth and prosperity.
Bofinger and Tsingos participated in the panel discussion titled “Creating Strategical Entrepreneurial Ecosystems” and moderated by EBAN VP Baybars Altuntas, along with Ilija Vuckov, Plamen Russev, Iulian Basu, Alejtin Berisha, Ivan Jovetic, Leslie Jump, Alicia Robb and David Tee. They pointed out that despite its very early and immature stage, SE Europe presents amazing opportunities to both local and international early stage investors.
Furthermore, Tsingos pointed out that HeBAN aims to offer a neutral, transparent, independent and 100% private platform for the Greek diaspora to invest in Greece without assuming the so-called “country risk”.
“It is not about helping Greece”, Tsingos said. “Helping Greece soon turns into charity and this has repeatedly been tried and failed miserably. With HeBAN it is about making success out of Greece. This is at the end of the day the only way to help Greece for real.”
HeBAN’s message was received with enthusiasm by the Europeans and international EBAN2015 participants.
At StartTech Ventures we are enthusiastic about this new initiative, inspired by the quality, enthusiasm and commitment of our fellow co-founders, and fully committed to contribute to its success.
We’d like to seize this opportunity to invite all of the Greece’s early stage investments ecosystem stakeholders to join this open, transparent, independent and collective effort, and help secure a bright future for investments and entrepreneurship in Greece.
