Greece is famous for its vibrant and influential culture, fantastic weather, and landscapes, but it’s worth knowing that it has a lot to offer also in regard to the startup & VC ecosystem. The Greek startup industry abounds with innovation, ranking number 48 globally, and dynamically expands its influence - growing 6 spots since 2021. In this article, we will begin an exploration of the startup ecosystem in Greece by rounding up the most influential and active accelerators and incubators.
Found.Ation Accelerators
Found.Ation is an innovation management consulting firm, focused on leading transformations within teams and organisations. It has been established in 2011 as one of the first tech incubators in South-East Europe and since then has greatly expanded its scope of activities. Found.Ation connects brands, startups and business leaders to create successful, future-ready companies in the tech space and across various industries. It does so through a variety of different, specialized projects and two flagship accelerator programs. The first one is EIT Digital Venture Program, offering an 8-week pre-acceleration, financial support of up to €25,000 and business development support from top international experts. It is dedicated to deep tech companies to help them build a viable MVP. The second program is Found.Ation Spark Accelerator, an equity-free annual program of 8 weeks with up to 5 teams in each cohort. It provides tailored coaching, training on service design and pitching, as well as opportunities for networking and exposure to the market for tech companies from Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania.
Egg Accelerator
Egg Accelerator is a leading business incubation and acceleration program that hosted more than 300 startups throughout its 9 years of activities and helped them to raise €34.6 million in financing. It is based in Kalithea and provides a variety of services for both startups and scaleups, which include financing, mentoring, support in networking, raising capital and entering new markets. Their program consists of two phases - incubation (during which selected teams work on developing viable business solutions) and acceleration (time for accelerated growth and fundraising). Thanks to Egg’s wide network of experts and partners, selected startups can count on comprehensive support and a great entry point towards the Greek startup ecosystem.
CapsuleT Accelerator
CapsuleT Accelerator is a thematic program that connects travel and hospitality industry leaders with young innovators, driving innovation in the Greek tourism sector. Its mission is to provide access to education, information, visibility and networking opportunities to new and promising ventures entering this sector. The program lasts for 5 months and consists of workshops, mentoring sessions, pitching opportunities, industry site visits, and networking activities. It also highlights the importance of cross-border collaborations between hospitality startups. Tech startups based in Greece, with at least a working prototype, more than two founding members, and less than 500K euros in funding are eligible to participate in the program.
Athens Digital Lab
Athens Digital Lab is a tech innovation hub right at the heart of the Greek startup ecosystem. It is organized by the city of Athens, to support the transformation of great tech ideas into advanced IoT solutions. Every year, there is a new Open Call for startups, young entrepreneurs or research teams operating in different thematic areas (aligned with the municipality’s strategic plans) to submit their innovative ideas. Upon selection, they are entering the incubation period, during which they are provided with a variety of resources, access to valuable data, networking as well as unique opportunities to test out their ideas in the real world, throughout many locations in the city of Athens. The most recent themes of the program included tourism, culture, public space management and crisis management.
Optima-X
Optima-X is a maritime innovation hub, based in Attica. It has a mission to support the Greek ecosystem in generating spin-offs, new concepts, startups and scale-ups and bringing their ideas to relevant markets. One of its key programs is Enso XL Accelerator - a seed-stage accelerator dedicated to the maritime ecosystem within the Athenian shipping cluster and beyond. It offers its startups coaching, support in piloting their ideas, cooperating with venture clients, networking and getting international visibility in the maritime ecosystem. Startups eligible to apply should be focused on thematic areas such as Data and AI, Fuel and Energy Efficiency, Infrastructure for ships and assets, Maritime cyber risk management, and more.
OK!Thess
OK!Thess is the biggest innovation hub in the city of Thessaloniki, which creates a community of ambitious entrepreneurs, researchers and creatives. An accelerator is one of its flagship initiatives. The program runs 4 times a year and is dedicated to ambitious founders of early-stage startups. It consists of workshops, masterclasses, and coaching sessions, during which entrepreneurs can learn all about business development and fundraising, and after the concluded run of the program, startups have the opportunity to pitch in front of leading investors. They also get access to OK!Thess coworking spaces.
Corallia
Corallia program is one the main pillars of the Greek innovation ecosystem which has successfully established business-support structures and implemented several flagship projects, which include entrepreneurial training events and acceleration and incubation programs. Amongst them, to name a few, are startup accelerator Egg (mentioned previously), Startab Entrepreneurship program and Business Incubation Centre ESA BIS Greece, created in cooperation with European Space Agency. This incubator is dedicated to startups developing space technologies, supporting their innovative ideas for 5 years. Corallia has also founded three high-tech clusters, centred around topics of nano/microelectronics, space technologies, and gaming, which gather young entrepreneurs, labs and research institutes.
I4G PRO
I4G PRO is a private incubator and pre-incubator located in Thessaloniki. It provides startups with working spaces and a variety of accompanying services. Its flagship program is Founders’ Lab - a 12-months acceleration program that turns business ideas into actual companies. Selected teams get an opportunity to access mentorship, coaching and a vast network of partners and other entrepreneurs, do market research, form a business model and later implement the plan in the real market. On top of that, i4G also is keen on investing at the seed stage of the projects with the highest potential.
The firm’s second major program is Entrepreneurship Training (ET), which aims to provide future entrepreneurs with the necessary knowledge and skills to develop their idea further and successfully launch it to the market.
The Cube Incubator
The Cube is Athens' biggest collaborative coworking space, business incubator, and startup cluster, located in the centre of the commercial district. Companies in the incubator can benefit from a variety of supporting services such as technology, marketing, finance, legal, or HR. The selected startups also get access to tailored mentorship, partners network, business and scientific expertise and access to market leads. The Cube also hosts a variety of entrepreneurial events and tech meetups, with the mission to provide a vibrant supportive environment for emerging companies.
Patras Science Park
Patras Science Park is a science and technology park located in Rio, Patra, that supports the growth of innovative, technology based companies across several sectors such as ICT, biotechnology, clean energy and other industrial technologies. It is an incubator for more than 40 innovative companies, providing them with high-quality infrastructure. It aims to shape the right financial and social conditions in the region, to support and promote the creation, operation and development of innovative firms through spin-off or spin-out processes and cooperation among the universities, research centres and the Industry. It is a part of a wide Patras Ecosystem, connecting educational institutions, coworking spaces and incubators, student organisations, networking events, research institutions, startups and business partners.
Want to discover more accelerators and incubators from other countries? Check out the list below.
Top Accelerators and Incubators from:
- Round-up Of The Best Accelerators In The CEE Region
- Albania
- Austria
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- France
- Finland
- Germany
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Türkiye
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- Western Balkans.
Related Posts:
Best Startup Accelerators And Incubators In Turkey (by Paweł Pliszka, Vestbee)
Best Startup Accelerators And Incubators In Belgium (by Katarzyna Groszkowska, Editor, Vestbee)
Round-up Of The Best Accelerators In The CEE Region (by Valerie Stupnikova, Vestbee)
