Startup Commons For Development Financiers

​We help design and implement funding programs and instruments that are well suited for innovation entrepreneurship ecosystem development and to establish Ecosystem Operators. We also help in evaluating development projects for funding.

For Development Financiers

Economic development financiers are crucial for ecosystem developers for their work in developing startup ecosystems that drive innovation entrepreneurship. Development finance institutions also have significant role in driving Digital Tranformation in economies they finance.

In many ways, their role for funding public, private and PPP organizations in Startup Ecosystem development is similar to VC's funding startups in all other industries.

Equally crucial for financiers, is information and data about the economies being developed. Not the least for insights, impact measures and ultimately for measuring the ROI of the funding provided. 

In past several years, Startup Commons have worked with development finance organizations like European Commission, National funding agencies and Foreign Aid organizations, as well as their funded project organizations in designing funding instruments and support functions at various levels. In addition we have supported many applicant projects and organizations in applying for development funding and providing strategic implementation support. Beyond our overall experience in Startup Ecosystem development for innovation entrepreneurship, this work have given us great perspective and experience to the dynamics and dependencies of development finance, funded projects and their outcomes.

In projects where we have joined at later phases, we often see many missed opportunities for higher impact with funding provided, simply due how the funding calls have missed to address some key aspects. In a way, funding calls are similar to "surveys", where the quality of answers are dependent of the quality of the questions. So how the funding calls have designed have defining impact on the best potential outcomes.

Startup Commons role is always to act as a neutral and supporting actor, focusing on targets of the funding and from there provide strategy support especially focused on KPI's, data and digitalization aspects.

We don not fund the projects or manage funding, that's a role of development financiers. We also do not apply for funding or drive the projects, as that is the role of the local organizations. In all levels we act as neutral and independent supporting actor, providing expertise, knowledge, open frameworks, open source tools etc. 
Services for Development Financiers:
  • Knowledge sharing; Best practises in ecosystem development projects, related funding models and KPI's 
  • Capacity building; Startup ecosystem development knowledge and innovation entrepreneurship education
  • Design and strategy support for support functions and ecosystem development project funding calls
  • Design and strategy support for digital transformation in key organizations funding calls
  • Evaluating Ecosystem Development Projects for funding
  • KPI design and data collection for impact assessments

Case Study

Swisscontact ​Swiss  Entrepreneurship Program (Swiss EP) Support to Startup Macedonia in cooperation with US AID and Startup Commons.

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Market Needs For Development Funding

Establishing Ecosystem Operator function to local startup ecosystems with proper resourcing and sustainable business model for long term and data-driven development, - to drive digital transformation and to serve and connect various ecosystem functions equally from a neutral perspective.

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Image on top: Economic Development original by Nick Youngson