Romania’s Bacău City Hall launches business hub for local startup founders

Entrepreneurs from Bacău, a city in eastern Romania, can learn how to create and develop their own businesses at Hub Orizont, a space launched by the City Hall to support startups in the cultural and creative industries. One of the new hub’s main activities is running an incubator program that includes group workshops, individual mentoring sessions, and events to promote participants.

Hub Orizont will be inaugurated with a launch event on March 22 by the Municipality of Bacău.

Registrations for the incubator are open for a month, from March 7 to April 7. Eligible candidates are individuals or teams of individuals (two to three founders) who want to set up and develop companies in the field of creative and cultural industries, companies established no more than three years ago with a CAEN activity in the creative and cultural sector, and companies that are not in a state of dissolution, judicial reorganization, liquidation, insolvency, bankruptcy or temporary suspension of activity.

Next, between April 7 and May 27, the entrepreneurs selected from the applications will participate in workshops to support the development of their businesses. Topics covered include Problem Validation, Customer Profile Identification, Product-market Fit, Pitching ideas, and more.

In the next phase, May 27-31, 20 startups will be chosen to be hosted by Hub Orizont from the Municipality’s budget for one year.

Then, according to the official announcement, individual mentoring sessions with the teams selected for the residency will be held from June 1 to November 1.

The Demo Day, the event marking the end of the incubation program, where the resident teams will showcase their products and progress made during the incubator, will be held in November.

“Our vision for Hub Orizont was to become a vibrant space that would motivate as many city residents as possible to consider the career option of entrepreneurship. […] We want it to become a meeting point for entrepreneurs from Bacău and the actors who support them: mentors, startup support organizations, business angels, universities, investors,” said mayor Lucian-Daniel Stanciu-Viziteu.

The Hub Orizont incubation program will be run by the Romanian Technology Startups Association (ROTSA).

Hub Orizont covers 680 sqm and was created by consolidating, reconfiguring, and modernizing the former Orizont cinema. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, and the total value of the funding contract was roughly RON 21.8 million, of which the total public contribution was almost RON 9.5 million. The investment in the construction of Hub Orizont was RON 10.6 million, without VAT.