Innovate in Greece by SEV |
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Dakis Joannou: Art is an adventure, an ongoing dialogue. Businessman Dakis Joannou is one of the most important figures in contemporary art: a collector who sees art not as a means of acquiring valuable works, but as an ongoing process of creation, exploration, and dialogue with artists. Coming from a family with a long business tradition, he followed in the footsteps of his father, Stelios Joannou, co-founder of the construction company J&P, which grew into one of the largest international construction groups, with operations in the Middle East, Greece, and other markets. Alongside this, he developed his own business activities in sectors such as construction, tourism, and hospitality, while always keeping art at the center of his personal interests. In conversation with Marco Veremis, he talks about his family and childhood in Cyprus, student life in 1960s America, his career in the demanding construction sector, the creation of the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, and his encounters with the artists who shaped his relationship with contemporary art. |
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| Startup Greece Week 2026 brought together founders, investors, academics and business leaders from 19 to 25 October, with more than 20 events and activities across nine cities and an online program. Alongside Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Xanthi, Larissa, Tripoli and Ioannina, Greece’s largest decentralized innovation and startup event expanded abroad for the first time, to Zurich and Nicosia. Through workshops, pitching sessions, themed discussions and networking events, it connected regional startup communities with the wider business and investment ecosystem. |
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Anacalypsis Therapeutics has raised EUR 300,000 in pre-seed funding from Metavallon VC through its Brain Gain Fund, the first investment by a Greece-based VC fund in a homegrown drug-discovery biotech. The funding will advance AT001, a peptide targeting the LRRK2 pathway as a potential disease-modifying treatment for Parkinson’s disease, through key preclinical proof-of-concept studies. Causaly has announced a collaboration with Microsoft that brings scientific computation and scientific interpretation together in a single, evidence-grounded workflow for life sciences R&D. The solution links Microsoft Discovery’s analytics, prediction and simulation capabilities with Causaly’s knowledge-graph reasoning, supporting work such as target identification, biomarker strategy and safety assessment. EBO has secured an investment from Olea Venture Partners, to support the next phase of its growth. EBO's platform automates complex patient interactions such as appointment management, self-assessments and pathway communications. The funding will accelerate adoption across health systems, extend the platform to new clinical and operational workflows, and support further expansion across Europe and into the United States. finmid has raised €17 million in a round led by Big Pi Ventures, bringing its total funding to EUR 52 million and setting up a new hub in Athens. The Berlin-based embedded lending company is launching vehicle financing with Bolt and a merchant lending program with Skroutz, funded directly by the marketplace for its roughly 9,000 merchants. Mind The Hack is the only Greece-based company on the Sifted 250 list for 2026, which ranks Europe’s fastest-growing startups. Founded in 2023, the cybersecurity company has built an AI-powered platform that automates penetration testing and continuous vulnerability management, cutting assessment times from weeks to hours. Omilia has secured $67 million in Series B funding to accelerate the global expansion of its self-learning agentic customer experience platform. The Athens- and New York-based company has grown its annual recurring revenue more than tenfold since its Series A to over $60 million, and runs some of the largest voice AI deployments in production, including a US bank handling more than one million calls a day. Piney, a Cyprus-founded cleaning and operations provider for short- and mid-term rental property managers, has raised EUR 1.6 million in a round led by Uni.fund. Serving some 5,000 properties across Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, France and the US, the company will use the funds to expand its AI capabilities and grow beyond Europe, starting with Miami. ReNeuroCell Therapeutics, a Heraklion-based spin-off of IMBB-FORTH and the University of Crete, has secured a EUR 500,000 grant from the European Innovation Council’s EIC Pre-Accelerator program. The company is developing human neuroimplants for patients with spinal cord injuries. The funding will strengthen its intellectual property and prepare it to attract venture capital and apply for EIC Accelerator funding of up to EUR 2.5 million. |
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| Marathon Venture Capital is making an aggressive turn toward AI with its EUR 75 million Fund III, after its portfolio has generated around €400 million in exits. Backed by the European Investment Fund and the Hellenic Development Bank of Investments, the fund leads seed rounds in ambitious technology founders from Greece and the diaspora. |
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Greece’s new national supercomputer Daedalus is going live at the Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park. With 89 petaflops of computing power, it is about 150 times more powerful than the existing ARIS system and is expected to rank among Europe’s top systems, serving the research, innovation and AI communities. |
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| Billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Rokos plans to move his tax residency to Greece and open an Athens office of Rokos Capital Management, which manages about $22 billion. The move highlights Greece’s growing appeal to international fund managers, supported by its EUR 100,000 flat tax on foreign income and a new 5% tax rate on carried interest. |
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| Kyriacos Sabatakakis, Country Managing Director of Accenture and co-chair of SEV’s Technology Committee, talks to WIRED Greece about how Greece can win in the AI era. He shares his view on what businesses and the country need to do to turn AI from a promising technology into real productivity gains and competitive advantage. |
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Open Cosmos plans to grow its team in Greece eightfold, to more than 300 people by 2030, following its EUR300 million funding round. The satellite manufacturer is expanding to 4,000 sq. m. of facilities, including 600 sq. m. of clean rooms in the first phase, with capacity to produce up to one telecommunications satellite a day. TITAN Group’s first-half 2026 results show how AI, VC funds and 3D printing are delivering measurable returns for a traditional industrial company. During the period, the Group extended its AI-based cement quality prediction solution to two more plants and made new commitments to venture capital funds and startup initiatives. |
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| Agisilaos Stathakis is Co-Founder and CFO of Superbo, an enterprise AI company building trusted agentic solutions that let organizations deploy governed AI agents across their existing systems, with a strong focus on security, compliance and auditability. We met with Agisilaos and talked about his career journey and his work with Superbo. Here's what he told us. |
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| On November 4, from 16:00 to 18:00, SEV will host an event at its premises to present the “Practical Guide: Business Compliance with the EU AI Act”. Through presentations and panel discussions, participants will gain insight into the current and upcoming obligations arising from the AI Act, the legal and organizational challenges associated with compliance, as well as lessons learned from companies embarking on their compliance journey. |
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On December 9, from 16:00 to 18:00, SEV will host an online event marking the annual edition of Observatory of Technology & Digital Transformation. The event will examine key trends shaping Greece’s technological transition, discuss the strategic importance of AI and data center infrastructure, and present SEV’s policy proposals aimed at accelerating the digital transformation of businesses and the Greek economy. |
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| SEV is organizing a business day with Europa Aluminum on November 30. Executives of the two companies will meet and discuss with Greek startups and scaleups at their HQ premises. Learn more about the Business Days initiative. |
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Interested in a job with a fast-growing Greek startup? Are you a Greek startup looking for the right people to hire? |
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Do you want to get involved in the Greek innovation ecosystem? |
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Tell us what you want us to cover in the next issue, and who to interview or invite to speak at one of our next events. Get in touch at info@innovativegreeks.gr Want to stop receiving emails from us? You can unsubscribe here. |
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