Zerofund: An innovative platform to kickstart Greece’s startup scene

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Greece-based journalist Eleni Natsi. You can find her on Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook. In 2011 the leading French newspaper Liberation published an extensive report on the Greek economic crisis as well as what happened to the global financial markets following former Prime Minister George Papandreou’s decision to call for a referendum. The referendum asked Greek citizens to vote on whether or not they want to accept the EU bail out package and all its measures, or to exit the Eurozone and return to the drachma. The title was “Le Chaos”. “Le Chaos” turned itself from a news title to a dominant word for foreigners each time they refer to Greece since the beginning of the severe economic crisis back to 2009. But is that the whole truth about Greece? Certainly not. Some people, especially the young generation, do their part to beat the crisis. And sometimes against all odds. Due to the crisis, government services were asked to undergo harsh budget cuts and companies started laying people off by the thousands. As a consequence, people started thinking of creating â€" and some of them actually funding â€" their own companies. BugSense, Taxibeat, Hellas Direct, the newly funded by Openfund startups Incrediblue and Workable HR (a €100,000 investment in Incrediblue and €600,000 in Workable HR) are some of the successful Greek startups that were founded during the crisis, paving the way for a hopefully better future