The Rise Of Startup Hansa: A Cross-Border Ecosystem Builder

Startup Hansa is a vision of a sustainable startup ecosystem that integrates major business and technology hubs around the world with the free flow of data, capital, and talent. The idea is to “build tech in Gdansk (Poland), operations in Amsterdam (Netherlands), and sales in the USA. By using the fastest growing seed market that Poland has, and having access to Series A investors in Amsterdam, Stockholm or Phoenix, startups will finally have access to the full ecosystem.”

The Startup Hansa Story

My interest in the ecosystem building started in 2016 when I partnered with Chris Daszkiewicz (Manager M&A at Siemens PLM Software) and organized the AmberHub conference. Debating on the differences between Polish and German startup ecosystem with Prof. Dietmar Harhoff (Director at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition), prof. Alexandra Goll (Senior Advisor TVM Capital GmbH and Managing Director BioPharma Advisory), and dozens of experts, we came to the conclusion that startups who have access to both the Gdansk and Berlin ecosystems would face fewer challenges than if growing in those cities separately.

Ever since, I have been looking for an opportunity to make it easier for entrepreneurs to leverage different ecosystems for the benefit of their startups.

The first occasion came with the Poland Prize program. Together with Agnieszka Cichocka from Inkubator Starter and Jan Wyrwinski from Alfabeat, we created the strategy for TechSeed.me accelerator under the management of Inkubator Starter with a goal to attract 18 foreign startups to the Gdansk ecosystem. The program got great traction with over 300 applicants and is now working with the 3rd batch. Along with another program run by Space3ac accelerator, it has greatly improved the ecosystem by bringing brilliant minds that shared experience, hired people, and accelerated their growth with great success.

Engaging Agnieszka Cichocka (Inkubator Starter) and Elizabeth Sutkowska (Neoteric), we organized the first Startup Hansa Conference in April 2019, where we invited VCs who are investing cross-border. After the event, we issued a report on cross-border investment through which our experts shared challenges and best practices in overcoming them.

In October 2019, we organized another event, this time together with the City of Gdansk. The brightest minds in ecosystem building including Pär Hedberg from Sting (Stockholm Innovation & Growth), David Fernandez from Start-Up Chile (N°1 Accelerator in Latam), Janusz Lewandowski (Deputy at European Parliament) joined us to share best practices. During this event, we signed an open Letter of Intent to establish Startup Hansa as a non-profit organization with a mission to build a sustainable startup ecosystem across the globe by joining existing hubs together. The list of signatures includes stakeholders from Poland, Sweden, Chile, Germany, Netherlands, UAE, Pakistan, Canada, Switzerland, Malaysia, the US, and more. We are now analyzing ecosystems in Amsterdam, Berlin, Gdansk, Phoenix (AZ), and Stockholm and issuing a report that will show how they can strengthen each other with collaboration.

How To Create A Cross-Border Ecosystem Builder

Creating a cross-border ecosystem leveraging the strengths of different countries is an ambitious project, and we’ve thought through how to make it happen and achieve the Startup Hansa vision.

1. Build a community: we are already onboarding members (startup founders, investors, experts, influencers, innovation heads from enterprises, mentors, advisors), ambassadors (responsible for growing local communities), and experts (founders and sponsors).
2. Map the ecosystem: establishing relationships with each player, mapping their matchmaking criteria. SaaS and Marketplace napkin by Point Nine Capital are good examples of matchmaking criteria. With each organization onboarded to the matchmaking program, we will prepare similar guidelines for making a deal with them.
3. Matchmaking: offering startups and investors high-profile matchmaking offering a direct introduction to Managing Partners, C-Levels, and Executives. Before the first introduction, each introduced member will go through an interview to ensure they fulfill all the matchmaking criteria and the conversation we set up is valuable for both sides. All matchmaking activities performed by the organization will build training data for machine learning algorithms to take over once their efficiency is excellent.
4. Develop an expert network: growing a network of top industry experts, mentors, and advisors that we will engage in offering endorsements for startups and investors (requiring interviews and reports) and offering due-diligence services that will include gathering independent customer interviews. You can look at Clutch.co and DigitalKnights.co for a reference to that process.
5. Establish a data intelligence platform: this platform will gather all the existing information on the ecosystem for which we are already partnering with Dealroom.co and StartupBlink and further extend it with real-time data from public and private sources. The platform will furtherly let to connect real-time operational data. 
6. Open a Startup Hansa Embassy in each city: embassies will serve as a one-stop-shop for Startup Hansa members. The embassies will collaborate tightly with the major ecosystem players in the city – investors, startup founders, accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces, telecoms, law & tax agencies, and vested service providers to introduce them with startups that are looking for partners in the local ecosystem. The embassies will also be responsible for growing the community of partners with unique events and missions to other cities.

All along the way, we plan to support the ecosystems with Public Relations, creating content that highlights their strengths and successes. The effort of the organization will be concentrated on using the data intelligence platform to identify key areas of improvements towards sustainability of the ecosystem and executing projects with key ecosystem players and municipalities to solve the challenges.

As a Think Tank joining the brightest minds in the industry, we will inspire changes in legislation and public support programs to strengthen the ecosystem along with investments in sustainability-supporting programs. We have already started to consult the partners regarding the Startup Visa program. Future projects will include enabling pension funds in Europe to invest in Venture Capital funds and introducing a sustainability index that would measure company against their impact on sustainability goals.

Join Us

Our efforts are now focused on establishing the organization formally. Before doing that, we need to ensure the budget for executing the strategy until we can introduce the right business model to achieve sustainability.

As we continue to build out the Startup Universal infrastructure, we’re always looking for others to join us in our mission of building sustainability in the startup world. If you’re interested in becoming involved, let us know!