The current economic crisis may have an effect on investment activity, but some statistics are make us optimistic that the Romanian startup ecosystem will be stronger.
By Claudiu Vrinceanu
The average Romania per capita funding for startups and scaleups lags other European countries but it is on 15th place, with 55 euro per capita, above some countries like Belgium (55 euro), Spain (31 euro) , Austria (22 euro) or Poland (5 euro), based on the new data, produced by Dealroom for the Not Optional – Making Europe the Most Entrepreneurial Continent summit – an event hosted by Index Ventures and Slush, involving Europe’s leading tech founders, investors, policymakers, and operators.
The research reveals that the value of European tech companies has increased rapidly, but the 2019 average EU per capita funding still lags the US and Israel. But individual countries like the UK, Sweden and Finland have closed in significantly.
The research shows that European venture capital funds raised 12.7 billion euros in 2019, almost double the 6.6 billion they raised in 2013. Despite Covid-19, European venture capital funds are on course to go on with this record-trend in 2020 by raising a total of 13 billion euros by the end of the year.
It is difficult to know how long the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus will last, but the amount of venture capital funding for Romanian tech startups during the first four months of pandemics looks decent.