KEPA held the 4th meeting with the stakeholders online on Thursday 10th of September 2020 about “Good Practices and draft Action Plan”, which was attended by 10 representatives of policymaking and programmes / financial instruments management organisations.
During the meeting, those selected good practices identified by the project partners, which are of particular interest to the region of Central Macedonia, were presented. Then a brief reference was made to the two main pillars that will be emphasized in the regional Action Plan (AP) that will be developed within the project and relate to the support of start-ups in finding alternative sources of funding and promoting the concept of business angels (BA).
In the discussion that followed, the participants had the opportunity to exchange opinions on the proposed actions and to inform about the latest developments in Greece, with emphasis on business angels. Some of the key takeaways of the discussion/meeting include:
- Supporting startups to find alternative funding sources and promotion of the concept of Business Angels are the two proposed actions that will be part of the final Action Plan for the Region of Central Macedonia.
- An inventory of start-ups is needed ( and so it should be proposed in the AP).
- Developing a short strategy to raise awareness and build BA clubs or networks should the focus of the second proposed action of the AP.
- Through the collaboration of the Greek Government and the European Investment Fund, a Business Angels’ co-investment fund can (and will) be launched - allowing ideas and projects to be supported at an extremely early stage in order to mature into business plans that will then attract the interest of other institutional investors.
In conclusion, the meeting was very fruitful considering the results were encouraging and will be further exploited during the formulation of the Regional Action Plan for developing and managing financial instruments as a means of implementing Structural Funds.
