Greece may remain in dire straits and a large percentage of young people may be unemployed, but Greek start-ups are being born and flourishing from the ashes of the Greek economy, as reported by the British newspaper The Telegraph.
The report, which cites data from the organization Endeavor Greece, indicates that 144 new companies were created last year, up from 16 that were established in 2010. According to the publication, this number may not be impressive on its own - given that 500 start-ups were created in Britain in 2013 - but economists and venture capitalists agree that Greece is on the verge of a start-up "explosion".
“For the last 20 years, the public sector was the largest employer in Greece,” explains Odysseas Kyriakopoulos, former president of SEV. “Now, everyone understands that this is over. Something that has pushed many people to think creatively and look for alternatives. Opening another clothing store or hair salon is not a solution, as there are many of them. So, we see many new ideas being born.”.
The British newspaper cites Nikos Anagnostou, who is behind the website GreekStartups.com – the Greek equivalent of foreign sites CrunchBase or AngelList.
“E-commerce, travel, cloud technologies, mobile, software, they’re all very popular,” he says. “The rate of birth of tech start-ups now far exceeds the rate of old companies disappearing.”.
Christos Psaltis founded Mist.io in 2010, during the crisis, using highly skilled unemployed people.
"We have a lot of talent here who are doing nothing. In Silicon Valley, the competition is high, here the talent has been abandoned," he tells the Telegraph.
The same publication reports that more and more international investors are financing Greek start-ups. According to financial services firm EY, multi-million dollar deals peaked in Greece in April.
Finally, it is reported that the Greek government is trying to facilitate procedures, but there are some legal issues that make it difficult to create new companies.
Source: lykavitos.gr
