Innovate 100
Turning Romania’s creative talent into companies, a hundred at a time.
A Studio East venture
Great ideas, no machine to build them.
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No first money
First-time founders can’t find an early cheque, so ideas stay ideas.
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No scaffolding
No legal, financial or operating support to incorporate and build.
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No next round
Only 28% of recent Romanian startup bets went on to raise again.
500 in. 4 fully funded out. Every cohort.
The selection board chooses who moves on at every stage, with mentors and tutors alongside.
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500
One-pagers. An open call, two weeks.
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100
€10k each. Incorporate and build an investor pitch.
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20
€50k each. Prove the concept.
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4
€240k each. Go to market.
Founders keep 70%.
Each stage you pass, we take a fixed 10% stake. It adds up rather than diluting, and stops at three stages.
A fully funded founder receives €300k in total: €10k, then €50k, then €240k. That is generous by design, so the best people apply, and it stays inside the EU de minimis limit.
One cohort backs more companies than Romania did all year.
- 40
- startup deals in all of Romania in 2025, raising about $120M between them.
- 100
- companies funded by a single Innovate 100 cohort.
- 5.5%
- of Europe’s venture capital reaches Eastern Europe, home to a third of its people.
- €10k
- takes a founder further today than €100k did a decade ago. AI made the first product cheap.
Source: How to Web, Venture in Eastern Europe 2025 Report.
The selection board is the product.
Investors in tech and disruptive businesses sit beside leaders and influencers from Romania’s creative industries. Their track records make the selection credible and the companies investable.
Behind them is a network of 700+ creative companies, built over fifteen years, to fill 500 applications in two weeks. Moldova, with its own incentives and an EU accession window, is the next market.
Help us light the first cohort.
Every cohort, five hundred people say “I have an idea.” Innovate 100 tells a hundred of them yes, and turns the best four into companies that matter. Founders who want to hear when the first call opens, and investors who want the deck: write to us.