Inspire 2024: The best ways to grow a business from seed to plant

A panel discussion on Thursday at the Inspire 2024 Entrepreneurial Festival focused on from seed to plant, where panelists discussed how they took their ideas from an initial idea to grow it to successful businesses. 

Dr Marianna Prokopi-Demetriades, co-founder of three biotech companies, George Tziazas, CEO of Ascanio entertainment company, Anna Charalambous, the director of Robura asset management, and Moyses Moyseos, operations managers of the Cyprus Research and Innovation Centre (CYRIC) discussed growing their businesses. 

“We saw the potential in Cyprus,” Moyseos said, discussing the way CYRIC works to attract companies to help them grow. He added that there is an umbrella of support for the businesses, and stay with them for the long haul. 

Prokopi-Demetriades, co-founder of Theramir, RSL Revolutionary Labs, Promed Bioscience, discussed the challenges in securing funds to materialise company ideas. 

She said that as a company they were lucky to invest in the Seed programme, through the research and innovation foundation (RIF), whose funding department is headed by Marilena Paraskeva. 

Prokopi-Demetriades said that the funding from RIF helped them to grow as a company, and expand to gain funding from other partners.

Tziazas said that the voucher from RIF helped them to get their start and secure bigger investors. 

“Having money is one thing,” he said, adding that what is also important is to have the trust of the investors. With this investment, Tziazas said that they are able to further progress and have started working with the defence ministry to run mix-use trials to run drills through triage. 

On securing seed funding, all panelists said that it is important to know where money goes, and knowing numbers is important. They also mentioned that it is important to have clear tangible goals, and know the market and clients. 

All added that it is important to be able to pivot when taking an idea from seed to plant, so that funding can continue to flow, and also be able to adapt to the business environment. 

Parakseva said: “I have to stress the importance of the team.” She added that the team is important in growing an idea and business.

Creating new products they all said that it is important to grow the business but it is important to know that the market is stable and ready to invest in the idea and business.