2020 Year In Review
2020 Year In Review
Greek startups in 2020, Adveos acquisition, 440 startup jobs, and more
Happy New Year folks! 🎉 Welcome to Hunting Greek Unicorns #20. I’m a startup guy based out of Greece, and every two weeks I will share news, jobs and more from the Greek startup ecosystem, and not only.
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🔍 2020 Year In Review
In this week’s newsletter, I will try to summarise the most important updates of the year from the Greek startup ecosystem; look back at what happened in 2020 and why I feel we are at an upward inflection point. Three interrelated themes will be covered that, together, make a really interesting mix that can set up new highs for Greek startups in 2021.
Significant M&A and investing activity
Increased interest and setting up offices from tech giants and foreign startups
Building a brand name as a destination for remote workers
Significant M&A and investing activity
The past year hit a record in terms of M&A activity! Big tech companies in the likes of Microsoft, Applied Materials, Delivery Hero and others acquired startups with significant operations in Greece. The largest acquisitions ever happened in 2020, breaking the ceiling more than once, with most notable being Softomotive (acq. by Microsoft) in May and then InstaShop (acq. by DeliveryHero) in August for $360M. Moreover, Applied Materials acquired Think Silicon in May, also ranking high among the largest acquisitions ever. The list of exits included companies such as Pushme to Tier Mobility, Blendo to RudderStack, GuestFlip to Travelbook Group and Adveos to Beken. In addition, we had a significant acquisition in the tech space, that of Lamda Hellix by Interxion. Further M&A activity that should be noted was the acquisition of a minority stake of Myrmex by Ocado and Everypay by Skroutz.
On the investing front, there was some noteworthy activity with several teams raising $10M or even higher, including: Skroutz, Omilia, TileDB, Netdata, Navenio, Spotawheel, Plum, Arrikto and Numan. Another highlight was the involvement of a tier 1 VC, Bessemer Venture Partners, leading the funding round of Netdata.
In regards to VC funds, last year we saw Marathon Venture Capital raising its second fund with first closing of €40M and a new launch, that of TECS Capital based out of Thessaloniki.
Increased interest and setting up offices from tech giants and foreign startups
A year in review couldn’t be complete without mentioning the big news of Microsoft planning to invest $1B in the country. The news made the headlines across the world in October, and this should be the start of more involvement from the company in the local tech scene. I’m also expecting more big tech companies to follow suit soon.
Greece is gradually becoming an emerging engineering hub in the area attracting both US and EU companies. Many foreign tech companies landed in Greece (apart from those that now have a local team through an acquisition), targeting the engineering talent and not only. One of the most notable ones was the remote collaboration company TeamViewer, which built an office in Ioannina, but also smaller startups such as Capture One, Panther Labs (backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners), Clerk, Fairlo, Weav (founded by the creator of Google Maps) and many more. This trend has been accelerating fast and will contribute to nurturing the local talent, raising the bar for all startups in the country, and even attracting more people to move from abroad for work.
Building a brand name as a destination for remote workers
Last year, a lot of discussion took place around the increase of remote work and how/if Greece can become an attractive destination for such workers. New legislations in combination with many Greeks repatriating to work remotely during the pandemic, acted as an interesting trigger for conversations and made the headlines globally.
Even Pieter Levels, the OG of digital nomads, used Greece as an example for attracting remote workers in one of his tweets.
How this plays out and whether we will see more and more digital migrants moving to the country and the start of a significant ‘brain regain’ wave remains to be seen and we will only be able to connect the dots backwards after years. But, the trend is already under way to some extent. According to Nomad List, Athens is in the list of fastest growing destinations for digital nomads in the last 5 years.
The Greek startup scene seems to be at an upward inflection point, showing signs of maturity and potential to progress much faster. Despite the slowdown due to the pandemic in some industries, 2020 was a great year for the ecosystem overall. More and more >$10M investments, >$100M acquisitions, >$200M valuations, foreign tech companies establishing hubs, top spots on Product Hunt and Hacker News, teams into Y Combinator, launches such as Elevate Greece; all of these created a fascinating mix last year. There is absolutely a lot of room to improve, yet there is every reason to believe 2021 and the years ahead will be extremely interesting for our emerging ecosystem 🚀
🦄 Startup Jobs
Greek startups are hiring! Here are some of the latest job opportunities:
DeepSea - QA Engineer (Athens) - Apply here
Earth Science - Front End developer (Athens) - Apply here
eFood - Customer Care Agent (Athens) - Apply here
Hack the Box - Training Content Developer (Remote) - Apply here
LearnWorlds - Partner Marketing Manager (Remote) - Apply here
Plum - Backend Engineer (Athens) - Apply here
Pollfish - UI/UX Designer (Remote) - Apply here
Schoox - Product Specialist (Thessaloniki) - Apply here
Spotawheel - Business Process Manager (Athens) - Apply here
TileDB - Senior Golang Engineer (Remote) - Apply here
🗞️ News
As expected, we didn’t have that many updates during the Christmas holidays. Nevertheless, one more acquisition was announced few days before the end of the year!
Adveos, a Greek semiconductor startup, was acquired for close to $7.5M by Beken, a Chinese company listed in Shanghai Stock Exchange. The company, founded in 2015, provides ASIC design services and develops RF, analog, and mixed signal IP cores.
New developments on the employee options tax front. Income from employee options is now officially treated as capital gain for Greek tax residents. More details here.
Some pretty cool highlights over the last couple weeks. Hack The Box featured inside a list with the top 25 cybersecurity companies of 2020 and Tendertec mentioned in the list of top 5 early-stage tech companies in Wales.
Funding opportunities were announced for startups registered in the Elevate Greece platform that will be €60M in total.
💭 Reading or listening
Two startups founded abroad have recently decided to build teams in Greece. A look into Capture One and Weav.
A virtual event taking place on January 14, with six VCs (Apostolos Apostolakis, Alexandra Choli, Dimitris Kalavros-Gousiou, Katerina Pramatari, George Tziralis, Marco Veremis) investing in Greek startups sharing their views in a roundtable discussion. Greece as a regional tech hub, attracting non-Greeks to work remotely, exits and more!
Constantinos Venetsanopoulos, founder & CEO of Arrikto, wrote about a super interesting topic, Data as Code, and how to empower end users take control of their data to accelerate iterations and increase collaboration.
An insightful podcast with Chris Douvos, founder of Ahoy Capital, discussing about funds of funds, investing in emerging fund managers, concentration vs diversification, using performance vs conviction to evaluate opportunities, “return the fund” models and more.
An overview of all the upcoming changes in the Greek tax regime in 2021 and how these may affect startups by Thaleia Misailidou, Principal at Marathon Venture Capital.
A story of resilience by Alexander Caravitis, founder & CEO of Syncbnb, discussing about how his travel startup survived the coronavirus.
Nikolaos Lygkonis, founder & CEO at PeopleGoal, posted about goal setting in a remote working world and five ways startups can optimise for better business performance.
Alex Eleftheriadis, Partner at Big Pi Ventures, on the technology progress during the previous decades that was necessary to be able to communicate over the internet, as easily as we can today. Link.
Post by indie-hacker, Alex West, on why he decided to quit his job and go full time on his side business.
A podcast with Marcos Veremis, Managing Director of Investments at an alternative investment management firm in Chicago, talking about crypto, their history, future, and risks involved.
I’d love to get your thoughts and feedback on Twitter or Facebook.
Stay safe and sane,
Greek Startup Pirate 👋
Great job, one more time!
Thanks very much for this analysis, Alex -- great read. Regarding Greece as a remote work destination, perhaps the time is approaching for a more focused, dedicated approach to promoting Greece's unique character as a lure for remote workers. I'm not just talking about the sun, beaches, great food, and high English language level -- there is a vitality here that is attractive to young, curious, innovative minds. As the ecosystem evolves, and investment increases, Greece can not only reverse the Brain Drain, but also attract the next generation of hungry, young engineers and entrepreneurs from across Europe to pursue their ambitions in Greece.