”The State of Romanian-Born Early Stage Startups 2024” Report

INTRODUCTION

This report comes as an effect of a need we had for many years now, that is a need which we know founders feel it too, namely to have a common understanding of the state of Romanian-born early stage startups.

Overall, the report provides valuable insights into the Romanian early-stage startup ecosystem. It highlights the prevalence of repeat founders, the importance of product validation, and the diverse range of industries and business models being pursued. It also reveals the challenges faced by startups in securing funding.

“Starting this year we’re entering a new stage with Launch Romania – uniting the next generation of groundbreakers. By this we mean fostering the entrepreneurial culture across key pillars of Romania’s future development – students, researchers and founders. In completing the landscape of knowledge and resources dedicated to the progress of Romania’s innovation landscape we’re publishing the newest edition of our annual report – The State of Romanian-born Early Stage Startups – by now a landmark piece of information for the national ecosystem and its stakeholders and which you can enjoy here. Such movements can only take place in a community designed project such as Launch Romania, powered by BCR with the support of Google and founding partner How to Web.”

Andrei Cojan | Head of Community, Launch Romania

The survey we applied for the data collection purpose was aimed to let founders’ personal experience unveil the reality that they and their peer startup founders share.

We consider a breakthrough moment to have a clearer picture of the reality founders live in by looking at various dimensions of a founder’s journey – product building, team formation, bootstrapping, sales, marketing, fundraising, hiring, scaling, and everything in between.

“We all needed to take this deep-dive into the reality of Romanian-born early stage startups. Why? Because now more than ever it’s important to tune in to what founders have to say in order to understand the problems and challenges they’re facing and therefore do our best to better support their endeavors from the beginning and therefore increase the likelihood of building innovation.”