Investors remain extremely wary of startup funding this year, although they acknowledge that, unlike other markets, in Greece, mobility is observed in terms of the direction of capital to companies that are in the early stages of development. “The market remains tight, we do not expect them to double under any circumstances. attachments this year,” market sources say.

Thus, in the first quarter of the Greek. startups based or present in our country, attracted, according to updated data from Marathon Venture Capital, $153 million, i.е. about 22% of their total funds raised (including borrowed funds) last year.

These funds were raised through 22 transactions involving 31 investors. Last year, according to Found.ation, Greek startups raised about €635 million in a year (of which €210 million came from funding FlexCar), while if we subtract loans provided by funds to companies, the amount is reduced to €325 million. Euro.

As for Greek parent companies not present in Greece, they raised almost $100 million more in the first quarter, bringing the total capital to $245 million. Significantly, Greek and foreign investors recently raised $15 million in capital, the Greek company SafeSize, which supports the research center and R&D in Kifisia and developed a system that finds the right size shoes for the consumer. In addition, a few days ago, Metrika, a Greek company that analyzes blockchain data, raised $4 million from M12, a Microsoft venture capital.

The progress of startups with a presence in Greece during the first quarter is considered satisfactory by many, however, market factors seem to be rather dampening as the technology sector was rocked by economic uncertainty (inflation, rising interest rates) culminating in a crash Bank of Silicon Valley and a wave of layoffs at technology companies.

It is estimated that more than 20,000 start-ups around the world have around €5 million in bank deposits, with market leaders reporting that SVB-related Greek companies have managed to withdraw their funds, or part of them, by transferring some to the bank. Greek banks.

Falling all over the world

According to crunchbase, investments in technology companies worldwide fell 53% in the first quarter of 2023 to $76 billion from $162 billion. In fact, that amount includes Microsoft’s astronomical $10 billion in OpenAI and ChatGPT, the famous artificial intelligence tool. Crunchbase notes that despite the downturn, funds and private equity have plenty of capital to invest in, while companies in the AI ​​sector were a notable exception in the first quarter of this year.