InnovX acceleration program will be launched on the 15th of November as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018, officially opening the on-line applications on the 1st of December 2018, celebrating 100 years from the moder Romania foundation. The first InnovX bootcamp will be held in Mindsapce Bucharest, and will promote Romania's takeover of the Presidency of the European Council in 2019. InnovX is a business accelerator having as main partners Mindspace, Startup Grind, European Center for Services Investments and Financing and other Financial Institutions from Bucharest and will  attract the most promising startups from FinTech in Bucharest to access the European market and European Commission grants and loans for innovation

The evening will kick off with a presentation held by Lior Barzilai, Director of Business Development Mindspace. Experienced manger in the fields of Business Development, holding a Bachelor of Law and Accounting from Tel Aviv University, member of the Israeli Bar Association and Israeli Accountants Council. Lior is leading global strategic initiatives at Mindspace, a rapidly-growing co-working company, active in 13 cities and 7 countries around the world, and helped building the company from 5 to 200 employees by driving operations, strategy, expansion, and recruiting. Lior's business and technology experience ranges from recruiting, sales, and customer acquisition to operations, organization scaling, fundraising, M&A, product development, strategy, P&L management, and team leadership. Always on the look out for new partnerships and investment opportunities.

Our next guest and InnovX Co-founder, Alex Mihailciuc, will tell us about how a Romanian company can become the most valuable global unicorn in robotic process automation. Alex Mihailciuc is from 2017, UiPath VP acting as Global Head of Pre-Sales.

Last but not least, Gyorgy Bodo, Financial Exper of the European Commission will present tips on how tech startups set up in Bucharest can access grants of 50.000 Euros and further scale-up through grants and loans up to 2.5 million from the Horizon 2020 Program.

Durring the evening we will have additional representatives of the financial-banking system in Bucharest who can provide reimbursable co-financing of the technological projects through the European SME Initiative, Easi & InnovFin programs developed jointly with the European Investment Fund. 

The event will be moderated by Dani Dumitrescu, Startup Grind Director in Bucharest.

Our fireside chat events have three segments, typically an hour each:

18:00 - 19:00 The first hour we will serve food and drinks and help you make friends. You could say it’s networking, but we aim to make it much more than that! The StartupGrind Bucharest team will ensure your experience stands out from other events.

19:00 - 20:00 The second hour is for the interview with InnovX partners and Q&A time. We call it a fireside chat for a reason - it is meant to feel like an intimate conversation. Think of it as assisted storytelling, if you will. We will talk about:

- Why is Mindspace Bucharest the best place to incorporate a FinTech startup company;

- UiPath, first Romanian global unicorn;

- The Horizon 2020 programme, SME Instrument - grants for innovative startups up to 2,5 million euro;

- The InnovFin programme - loans for innovation up to 7,5 million euro;

- Why are so many big financial institutions opening technology centers in Bucharest? 

- How many FinTech unicorns entered the Romanian market?

- InnovX promoteur of the 2019 Romanian Presidency of the European Council;

- The accelerator program - study case: incorporating UK FinTech startups in Bucharest.

20:00 - 21:00 The final hour is another chance for you to connect with each other more and to meet the speaker.

About InnovX:

InnovX will select the most innovative fintech start-ups from Romania and UK that have the potential to access European grants up to 2.5 million euros from Brussels. Although the program is open to any participant, at an affordable pricing, InnovX will select for the 2019 cohort, 10 startups that can participate for free in the program against 7% equity.

About MindSpace:

Mindspace is the rapidly-growing global provider of stylish and inspiring coworking space for teams of all sizes - bringing ALL-INCLUSIVE and global coworking to Bucharest, with 3 primely located spaces. The company operates 28 spaces in prime locations across major world cities in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and Israel.