The 2023 Startup Pirate Year In Review
Year in review, product leadership, LLMs, zero-knowledge proofs, UX metrics, jobs, events, and more
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The 2023 Startup Pirate Year In Review
Friends, welcome to the last post of Startup Pirate for 2023. We are halfway through year #4 in this newsletter. It still feels surreal that a small fun experiment in the spring of 2020 has led to 89 editions 3.5 years later. A lot has evolved since then, but the goal remains; create a single place for people to learn what matters in Greek tech and startups.
This year felt like a big reset. Leaving behind the impact of the pandemic and zero interest rates phenomenon, most startups went back to the drawing board, and sustainable growth with healthy unit economics became the name of the game. Meanwhile, deal sizes and valuations started making more sense once again (with the exception of some corners of the AI land).
As a market that experienced less hyperbole in the previous years, Greek tech shows stability. Especially if we zoom in on the startups with operations in Greece, you see that the number of rounds in 2023 ends up close to that of 2021 and 2022. This is an outlier compared to most tech ecosystems. Moreover, Greek startups continue to get acquired by big tech and large industrials (Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell, Sony, CNH Industrial, Nabtesco, etc).
This year Startup Pirate published 20 posts. Below, as per tradition, I share a brief summary of them.
Five most-viewed articles
The five most-viewed articles according to page views:
Optimism — Why there’s a lot to be optimistic about Greeks in tech doing cool shit and pushing frontiers; scientists at the top of their fields, a high density of engineering talent, the rise of deep tech, and more entrepreneurs who’ve walked the extra mile.
What to watch in agriculture tech — Agtech founders and investors discussed trends to watch in this industry. Also presented a list of Greek agtech startups.
From Startup to Exit — Being a startup CEO during peacetime and wartime with Dimitris Glezos from Transifex.
AI Product Managers — How Product Managers can thrive in the AI era with Marily Nika from Meta’s Reality Labs.
Building a B2B marketplace business — Learnings and challenges from Europe’s leading agriculture marketplace with Ilias Sousis from Wikifarmer.
Artificial Intelligence
The biggest story in tech this year was the emergence of AI applications. We spent a fairly good amount of time with experts exploring trends:
Generative AI and 3D — Revolutionising 3D content creation with AI and NeRFs with Theo Panagiotopoulos from Luma AI.
Understanding large language models — Large language models explained with Rui Miguel Forte from Causaly.
AI chips and edge computing — Running AI algorithms in small objects in the physical world with Ioannis Koltsidas from Axelera AI.
AI for flood resilience — The most frequent and deadly natural hazards worldwide are floods. We explored how AI can help communities become more resilient against them with Danny Chatziprodromou from REOR20.
Hardware
As the West aims to break free from the one-sided addiction of having pretty much everything we consume produced in China, this year, we witnessed massive capex investments and a hardware renaissance. We touched on a number of areas:
Hardware Startup to Exit — Learnings and challenges of building a hardware company with George Kalligeros from Pushme.
Quantum computing — An introduction to quantum computing with Georgios Korpas from HSBC Labs.
The “chandelier” inside a quantum computer is designed to cool its processing chip The state of drone delivery — A new technology that’s about to take off as new regulations are coming together with Aris Kolokythas from Velos Rotors.
Robots that build the world — Robots are coming to a construction site near you with Eirini Psallida from KEWAZO.
Fixing the food supply chain — Bringing together chemistry, electronics, and AI to measure the quality of food in real-time with Michael Kasimatis from BlakBear.
Energy
One of Europe's most pressing issues is getting our energy transition on track. High electricity prices, surging energy demand, and a race to meet climate goals suggest we need new solutions in the energy field. We explored:
Power grids — There is no green future without an upgraded power grid. We discussed how to bring power grids to the 21st century with Anastasios Oulis Rousis from SMPnet.
What to watch in energy tech — Six founders shared trends to watch in this industry.
Space, Bio, Defence, and more
Lastly, other themes that got me excited during the year and discussed:
Therapies for chronic inflammation — Fighting some of the most challenging diseases of our time, from molecule design to developing new therapies with Katerina Chatzi from Promakhos Therapeutics.
Space economy — The new space age and how to extend the lifetime of satellites with Manos Koumandakis from Infinite Orbits.
Rise of deep tech — Founders pushing the frontiers of what’s possible.
How to find founder-market fit — Why a founder should be well-suited for the market they are targeting with Mark Tsirekas from Ithaca Labs.
Defence & civil protection startups — A list of startups with Greek founders enabling defence and civil protection use cases.
Jobs
Check out job openings here from startups hiring in Greece. The list now has 535 jobs from 98 companies.
News
Game design team collaboration tool Arcweave raised $850k Seed, with Genesis Ventures participating in the round. (link)
ResQ Biotech, a spin-off of the National Hellenic Research Foundation that aims to develop therapies for diseases caused by problematic protein folding, raised funding. (link)
Healthcare startup COSKIN (link) and green hydrogen company REMA (link) won financial support from Venture Kick.
Products
Biosimo Chemicals, CodeDepot, Design System Cookbooks, Sophic
Resources
Kostas Kryptos, co-founder and Chief Cryptographer of Mysten Labs, on Zero-knowledge proofs. (link)
Product leadership in big tech and startups with Dennis Pilarinos, founder & CEO of Unblocked. (link)
Graphs, analytics, and Generative AI by George Anadiotis, founder of Linked Data Orchestration. (link)
John Pagonis, Principal UX Researcher at Zanshin Labs, on tracking UX progress with metrics. (link)
Building a Mediterranean restaurant chain in the US and the path towards a publicly traded company with Ted Xenohristos, founder of CAVA. (link)
Using parallel_tests and Github Actions to bring CI times down by Markos Fragkakis, Staff Engineer at Workable. (link)
Events
If you’re in Athens next week, join us at “Open Coffee Athens #115” on Dec 21
“36th Thessaloniki WordPress Meetup” by Thessaloniki WordPress Meetup on Dec 15
“Introduction to Cloud Computing” by AWS Cloud Club on Dec 18
“Open Coffee Thessaloniki #80” on Dec 19
“Xmas Special .NET Event” by .NET Greece on Dec 21
I’m thankful to everyone who shared their insights through this newsletter and to all of you for giving me a little bit of your time, attention, and thoughts in 2023. Have a wonderful holiday season, and I’ll see you in the new year. It’s going to be fun.
Find me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Thanks for reading,
— Alex