Page 17 - Buy Russia - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine April 2017

bne April 2017 Companies & Markets I 17
team,” agrees Nourescu, adding that the trick is to know how to attract them. He describes his workspace as “Google-ish” with Wiis and Playstations, flexible hours, free food and his beagle curled up in its basket in the corner.
Woogie’s Coman cites the evolution of the tech ecosystem in Romania, noting that cities such as Cluj have now become hubs for tech startups. His first experience of the scene was with the MVP Academy, a local business accelerator. “This sector is starting to see more and more founders, incubators and, who knows, maybe even angel investors.”
So far, however, entrepreneurs say it can be harder to find investors than in better established high-tech hubs – though on the plus side, small amounts of money go further in Romania. In addition, launching a new hardware product when they already have a business with a revenue stream also puts the entrepreneurs in a position where they don’t initially have to seek funding or give up large chunks of equity at an early stage.
Reflex is the only one of the three to have received funding, taking a small investment from an Austrian business angel. Moldoveanu says the company is interested in meeting investors as it is likely to need funding in around six months.
So far neither Silometer nor Woogie have received funding yet, although Woogie is considering a crowdfunding round in
EU’s eastern half slow to join wind and solar revolution
Carmen Valache in Lund
Renewable energy advocates are hailing the beginning of a new era for wind and solar power, which are finally becoming competitive at market prices with the advent of the latest generation of technologies.
Led by Germany and its “Energiewende” transition to low- carbon, environmentally friendly generation, Western, Northern and Southern Europe have jumped on the renew- ables bandwagon, but the newer EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have been slow to follow. Efforts to incentivise investments in renewables have been patchy, and often undermined by powerful vested interests.
the near future. Silometer is using revenues and pre-sales to fund its operations and has avoided taking seed funding, but Nourescu says they would be willing to talk to larger investors as they scale up and look to find customers outside Romania.
Another constraint is the relatively small size and low income of the local market. While the team behind Woo- gie is Romania, it is targeting English-speaking markets starting with the UK. Another Romanian team, led by serial entrepreneurs Mihnea de Vriea and Falvius Balaj, developed Scooterson, described as the “world’s first intel- ligent scooter” but the company is based in London.
Vector Watch is another successful hardware startup whose main operations are in Romania, although it is headquartered in London. The software platform and development team were acquired by US
fitness wearables company Fitbit in January.
Moldoveanu and Nourescu are also looking across their country’s borders. “If you only operate in the Roma- nian market, you can have a nice family business with- out appeal to venture capitalists,” says Nourescu, who
is eyeing opportunities in neighbouring Bulgaria and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Reflex is working with several clin- ics in Bucharest, but is also looking for clinics elsewhere in Europe to arrange development partnerships.
Technological advances mean renewable energy sources can now be considered credible alternatives to hydrocarbons. Oil major BP anticipates that renewables, together with hydro and nuclear power, will account for half the increase in global energy by 2035.
In a lecture at Lund University late last year, Tomas Kaberger, member of the board at Swedish energy company Vattenfall, enthusiastically noted that no-one had expected installed wind power capacity to grow as quickly as it did - by a factor of 20
to 480 gigawatts (GW) globally between 2001 and 2016. The factor tipping the scale in favour of wind power, he said, was China. As for solar power, "German households have subsidised
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