American firms are buying Greek startups

American tech giants are increasingly gobbling up Greek startups, mainly for the technology, but also for the talent that comes with their small teams through acquisitions.

Giants such as Cisco, Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise have already acquired several small Greek startups, and according to Kathimerini, this list could soon include US semiconductor company Intel, which is exploring the possibility of acquiring the founding team of Greek technology company InAccel, created by Christoforos Kachris. Ilias Koromilas and Yiannis Stamelos.

According to the same sources, negotiations are at an advanced stage. “These are transactions that do not give investors of Greek startups noticeable profits, these are low value transactions. But Greek startup teams have the opportunity to integrate into a transnational group, and in some cases even expand.”says Kathimerini, one of the heads of the investment fund market.

He notes that being employees of multinational companies, startup founders gain additional knowledge and experience, which leads to the formation of a new generation of entrepreneurs.

“They can brainstorm ideas for their next startup internally, – he says. – They are all born entrepreneurs, and it is not easy for them to integrate into the corporate culture for a long time.”.

A few months ago, Cisco announced the acquisition of Code BGP technology company Xenophon Dimitropoulos, Vassilis Kotronis and Lefteris Manasakis. The company, a division of the Institute of Informatics of the Technology and Research Foundation (ITE), develops software to monitor the BGP protocol to ensure the secure operation of the Internet.

Another startup, Arrikto, which offers tools for business organizations to develop computational learning applications, appears to have been taken over by US-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Similarly, Mist.io by Christos Psaltis and Dimitris Moraitis was recently acquired by US giant Dell.

It is worth noting that such acquisitions are of dubious value for the Greek economy and science. Essentially, this is the purchase of ideas and brains that are highly likely to leave Greece. However, many of these startups without external support would remain just ideas.

The Greek authorities should pay attention to the support of their citizens, and not rejoice at the fact that they were bought up by foreigners…

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