Ruse Chamber of Commerce and Industry has started work on a project aimed at business angels and innovative enterprises

RTIK launched a partnership under the project "orGAniZing acceleration for high-potentiaL innovativE SMEs- Gazelle" (Stimulating the development of innovative SMEs with high potential) together with 6 other partners, financed under the Interreg Balkans - Mediterranean program. The leading organization on the project is the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry - Greece, and the other members of the consortium are from Cyprus and North Macedonia.

The thematic goal of the project is to increase the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Balkans-Mediterranean region.

The sphere in which the consortium will operate is relatively new for this region, namely identifying the investment activity of "business angels" and the companies in which they invest.

The acronym of the project "Gazelle" was not chosen by chance, since the main target group is those fast-growing, innovative companies, which economists call "gazelles".

The main idea is the development of an integrated mechanism aimed at innovative SMEs, aimed at improving their innovation potential and increasing their adaptability to the changing business environment. The proposed mechanism will enable these high-potential SMEs to develop cooperation at the transnational level, increasing the opportunities to expand their markets.

At the very beginning of the project, the partners will conduct a large-scale survey of the status of "business angel" investors in the entire Balkans-Mediterranean region, good practices will be selected to be examined in detail and studied through training visits on site and direct contacts.

The project will pay particular attention to the technology transfer centers in the Balkans-Mediterranean region, which are concentrated in universities, as the main generator of knowledge. Through research, technology transfer centers will be selected that have the potential to support innovative SMEs in their activities by sharing specific knowledge and technologies.

Within the framework of the two-year project, it is planned to create a network of four centers to support innovative SMEs. They will be located in Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and North Macedonia.

35 innovative SMEs will be selected (10 from Greece, 10 from Cyprus, 10 from Bulgaria and 5 from North Macedonia), which will go through a special acceleration training program developed through the technology transfer centers, aimed at accelerating the pace of development of the selected companies .

The project will end with 4 large-scale transnational investment forums (Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and North Macedonia), which will involve business angels, the selected companies, as well as future "gazelles".