500 Global spreads its wings across the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, via Tbilisi

European accelerators are going through an interesting time right now. For instance, TechStars Stockholm was all set to launch and then abruptly shut down. And I think it’s now commonly accepted that most accelerators outside of YCombinator can too be often ‘less than adequate’, to put it diplomatically. Perhaps an exception to this oft-repeated phrase, in my experience, is Entrepreneur First out of London/Europe (but now also in Asia), and even then that entity is slightly closer to a pre-accelerator in the way it assembles talent before it assembles the startups (although it does also fund its startups).

Having said that, accelerators still have a role to play in Europe’s emerging ecosystem. Admittedly, in the ‘developed’ countries of Western Europe, startups are generally better off skipping accelerators and raising directly from Angels, HNWs and pre-seed funds. Of course, “your mileage may vary.” However, it’s in Eastern Europe that — I think, at least — that accelerators have their best effect in markets where where the tech startup ecosystem barely exists, if at all.

Central, South Eastern, and Eastern Europe have already seen a number of new VCs recognize the talent coming out of those regions (see Inovo, Credo, LauncHub, Vitosha, VentureFriends, Marathon VC etc). Plus, 500 Istanbul last year relaunched istelf as 500 Emerging Europe with a €70 million early-stage fund. The latter has made investements such in Greece (Plum), Latvia (Printify), and Bulgaria (Cloudpipes).

 

TechCrunch