There are countless reasons, but also ways to involve traditional industrial sectors in the development of the domestic startup ecosystem, is one of the conclusions of today’s talks on “Startups: An Unexpected Opportunity for Serious Players” at the CEO Summit conference.
The focus of the first part of the program was Andrej Benčić, co-founder of the startup Tenderly, who in the previous period drew the public’s attention by attracting an investment of 13.5 million dollars. Another interlocutor on this topic was Milovan Milić, the founder of Devtech, an active investor in startups and a member of the group of business angels recently gathered by the Digital Serbia Initiative. The conclusion of both talks is that the possibilities for financing startups in Serbia have been much more tangible lately than before, because there are enough teams worth investing in, but that there is still a lack of education among those who invest and those whose businesses are invested in.
In a conversation with Andrej Benčić, the director of the Digital Serbia Initiative, Nebojša Bjelotomić, analyzed the dizzying success of the domestic startup Tenderly, which developed a platform created with the aim of accelerating the acceptance of blockchain technology. In the conversation, Benčić pointed out the opportunity, but also the necessity of including more people with business experience in the development of innovative startup companies.
– The four of us who started Tenderly are all engineers and that’s it. We made a product in a domain that was familiar to us, which was blockchain technology. When we made the product we came to a small problem – people from the traditional economy and the world of venture capital did not use the same language as us. There was a period of learning, where we had to get used to the fact that the engineering approach is not the best in all situations for providing capital for faster growth – said Benčić. From his perspective of a very successful startup founder, Benčić adds: If we had more traditional experience in the founding team, we could definitely skip a few years and reach the initial capital earlier. From this angle, I clearly see that there is a need for more comprehensive business knowledge that would benefit startups.
In another conversation led by Natasa Skrbic, project coordinator of the Digital Serbia Initiative, Milovan Milic used his presentation to underline the importance of developing investment awareness as a good opportunity to proactively preserve and multiply capital.
– At the age of 19, I had the opportunity to see what a potential return on investment can be achieved by investing in technological startups. On average, one in ten startups succeeds, and the average return on investment in a portfolio of 12 startups is 2.5 times the total capital invested over a three-year period. When you use your free capital by buying a property, sometimes maybe the tenth in a row, you can’t influence its price much in five years. On the other hand, by actively participating in the startup, you contribute to a greater chance of its success. In addition to all the factors we take into account, it is a good time to solve the problem that the startup wants to solve, what is the team behind the startup, what is the idea itself, etc. We as early investors have the opportunity to influence the success of that startup through mentoring, consulting. These are things that in this critical early stage of the company can drastically change the chances of success.
He also touched on the importance of investing in the group of business angels of the Digital Serbia Initiative:
– With this type of investment, it is not necessary to fully understand the industry in which the startup in which you invest operates. The idea behind our group of angels is that we have people with different experiences from different industries. In all this exchange of information and knowledge, we can jointly identify among ourselves the opportunities in which it is worth investing. For example, I am not an expert on blockchain, but we have excellent experts in this group for this technology, and the rest of us will rely on their assessment – Milić explains.
One of the topics raised during the conversation was the publication of a guide for startups ‘’Undertake the idea – start a startup’’ that will provide practical information and advice necessary for future and existing startups of innovative businesses. This document was created by the Digital Serbia Initiative in cooperation with the consulting company PwC Serbia, and within the project Undertake the Idea, which it is implementing together with partners FON, Nova Iskra, PwC and Startit, with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), eKapija reports.
