W11 Ventures: Bringing startups and traditional industry together

While a fairly new company, W11 Ventures, a tech and innovation growth advisory firm aiming to change the norm of corporate services in Cyprus and beyond, draws on the strong experience and many years of expertise of its founders, Dr. Nikolas P. Mastroyiannopoulos and Stavriana A. Kofteros.

Speaking to CBN recently, Mastroyiannopoulos and Kofteros told us more about the company’s current activities, which among other things, include partnerships with KPMG Cyprus and Elias Neocleous & Co LLC, and their professional plans for the future.

Can you tell us more about the decision to form W11 Ventures? For example, did you see a gap in the local market?

Dr. Nikolas P. Mastroyiannopoulos: Clearly there is a gap internationally, not only in Cyprus, of strong business interactions between two dynamic clusters, namely the startup, technology, and innovation ecosystem on the one hand and the corporate and traditional industry on the other hand. Leveraging our professional experience and inherent skills, W11 Ventures came to life to offer its Innovation and Tech Plug-in Strategic Advisory Model to help corporates and startups to achieve competitiveness and international growth.

Our model focuses on helping companies achieve exponential growth with multi-functional advisory and digital transformation services through advanced technologies, innovation adoption, new product development, international business development and capital raising. It is a unique offering to companies that leverages innovation and technology for their digital transformation creating a hybrid model that enhances operational efficiencies, increases competitiveness, and accelerates end to end growth.

Similarly, startups and scaleups face challenges with product-market fit, and international growth that also comes down to fuel-to-scale, money in the bank through investments for their growth journey. W11 eliminates these gaps and hands-on manages the business interactions/contracts between the two different ecosystems, creating value for both simultaneously, accelerating their growth, sustainability and enhancing their market share and valuation.

What is the company’s approach to doing business and what kind of clients are your services aimed at?

Stavriana A. Kofteros: W11 Ventures is a unique boutique growth and innovation advisory firm, scaling startups and innovative companies and a value adding connector of corporates and traditional industry with the innovation ecosystem, creating partnerships for the long run, gearing our clients towards creating and investing in successful innovative businesses, with a proactive role geared to genuine value creation and growth. W11 has an exclusive positioning, and a broad network in the European research, innovation and technology ecosystem and key stakeholder organisations. W11 acts as a trusted strategic partner and venture friend to its portfolio and clients, advising and supporting companies throughout their lifecycle, from the seed, startup, to scaleup phase, looking for business development, capital raising, growth and exit opportunities. W11 offers strategic advisory to investors and funds such as Investment deal advisory, capital raising (LP), dealflow sourcing and scouting. W11 is active across the board in various sectors, with special focus in ICT, energy, and life sciences / health, healthtech/medtech among others, as the W11’s model is sector agnostic. W11’s unique 360 approach and expertise adds value, and interconnects the ecosystems, filling the gaps, creating competitive advantage for its clients.

Can you tell us more about your specific services? What are some of the ways your specific skills and professional experience shape the services you provide?

SK: The founding team of W11 Ventures brings together a unique set of expertise and knowhow of over 44 years of cumulative hands-on experience in research, innovation, technology transfer and development, commercialisation, startup support, acceleration, and investments along with our international network, re-enforced in all aspects through our strong strategic partners, to solve real needs of our clients and prepare them for the future.

W11 Ventures offers End to End Strategic Startup Advisory to companies in the seed, startup, and scaling phase for companies looking for business development, capital raising, international growth or exit opportunities. (Coaching, Advisory, Review and Advisory on Business Model Development (Lean Startup Methodology), Development / Review of Business Plan, Investment Readiness Services, Investment opportunity Detection / Scouting and Assessment (equity), Due Diligence, Strategic Project Management of R&D and innovation projects, EU jurisdiction soft landing services.)

We further offer Strategic Multi-functional Advisory services to corporates and industry. (Operational Deep Dives & Business Pain Points Identification, Strategic Technology and Innovation Opportunity identification, Strategic Foresight, Business Intelligence Advisory, Design, development and maintenance of corporate grade software and hardware solutions in various verticals. Review of technology, innovation, digital solutions plug-ins, Digital Solution Development, and implementation, Innovation, Technology, Digital and AI plug-ins Detection and Advisory, Robot-As-A-Service, Technology Transfer, Startup Scouting, Investment / M&A Opportunities Detection, Strategic R&D Advisory, Internationalisation: Exploration of collaborations with potential international stakeholders and /or strategic parties, Capita Raising Services, EU jurisdiction soft landing services.

Strategic Advisory Services to Investors and Funds. Investment deal advisory, capital raising (LP), dealflow sourcing and scouting. Participation in Investment Advisory Committees of international funds, and angel syndicates (Israel).

Technology and Digital Builder. Design, development and maintenance of corporate grade software, hardware, and AI solutions in various verticals. Review of technology, innovation, digital solutions plug-ins. Artificial Intelligence Strategy and AI plug-ins Implementation, Robots-as-a-Service, Digital Solution Development and implementation, Digital Design and Digital Assets for Gaming Studios.

What are some of the company’s future plans, for 2024 and beyond?

NM: We believe in building strong strategic partnerships of collaboration in a win-win approach. We are honored to be partnering with companies like KPMG Cyprus, and Elias Neocleous & Co LLC, but also sector specific companies like Green Energy Group for example, companies whose vision is in alignment with us on creating unique offerings to their clients. Our future plans, growing from a nine-month old company, is to scale W11 Ventures, expand our activities internationally aiming to strengthen our international footprint, open new markets, and offer real value to our clients and partners.

What is your view of the business scene in Cyprus and how do you believe it will develop over the coming years?

SK: The pandemic highlighted the digital need and exacerbated the challenges faced by businesses internationally. At the same time, it accelerated digital transition and technology adoption. The AI storm, supercharged and mainstreamed by ChatGPT, is additionally creating further challenges to traditional companies with low levels of digitisation and technology adoption. In search of operational efficiencies and decreasing operational costs, digitisation and automation are key pillars of sustainability and growth. Further, ESG creates new challenges and equally, new opportunities and line of business. Corporates, traditional industry, and service providers will need to adopt to the evolving business environment that is increasingly tech and innovation enabled. This is even more important for Cypriot businesses in order to be competitive and grow internationally. We see positive change and we believe the Cypriot business scene will expand and grow significantly as the mindset of technology and innovation adoption increases day by day.