Strengthen Ecosystem Enablers
Summary
This intervention would take the form of a programme to support existing or new ecosystem enabler organisations to increase their efficiency and effectiveness.
Rationale
Vibrant ecosystems typically have several support organisations, such as incubators, accelerators and professional networks. Many of these provide services (such as education about product-market fit) that are not available through other channels. There are several such established support organisations in Romania. However, those that exist are largely privately-funded and there are no programs to support their development. As a result, the landscape of existing ecosystem enablers is fragmented and subscale.
This intervention seeks to build the capacity of existing ecosystem enablers, creating closer links between these organisations and closing gaps in the Romanian Startup Ecosystem as a whole. Consequently, this will help develop the skills and capacity of entrepreneurs themselves.
It proposes to do this via a series of publicly-funded grants, which would be used to improve the operation and capacity of organisations – e.g. by encouraging knowledge exchange with respected enabler organisations in leading ecosystems.