Jan 10, 2014
RICAP program (Romanian Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program) was founded in Bucharest by a group of management consulting professionals and startup ecosystem supporters located in Romania and US (GEA Strategy & Consulting, today CIVITTA Romania, Larta Institute (US), CRIDL Romanian Center for Innovation in Local Development and Romanian American Foundation). RICAP was then oriented mostly to bring on the market the research & innovation driven technologies and support the high potential of local research outcomes through building their commercialization strategy for the international market.
RICAP™ was the only accelerator in Romania who made outreach in all industries, trying to discover potential in soft but also hard technologies. This was one major competitive advantage towards the local startups supporting initiatives (incubators, accelerator or hackathons, etc) who were focused primarily on soft ICT products.
During 2013-2016 RICAP ran 3 cohorts of startups with an extensive range of acceleration services oriented to a “network centric approach” which was the model pioneered by Larta Institute, our partner in 2014-2016, and used for their programs across the globe. This was based on the delivery of “just in time” assistance to entrepreneurs, appropriate to their stage and specific need/s, via a network of specialists who were available to us at all times and knowledgeable with the markets in which those entrepreneurs will compete. This contrasts with many existing methods in the market that employ business generalists that put companies through sequential, linear training programs that treat all businesses as equal. Given the differing states of innovation and entrepreneurship in the different countries, it was clear to us that a “one size fits all” approach, commonly pursued by consulting firms, couldn’t not work.