On June 20th, 2013, Moldova officially joined the CEED family. For the first time CEED is linking up with an established and knowledgeable local organization to expand its mission to support entrepreneurs and drive job growth. This ‘affiliate’ approach provides CEED a way to more quickly and cost-effectively expand into new geographies by leveraging the on-the-ground knowledge of an established entity. Our partner in Moldova is the Business Advisory Center (BAC). BAC has been helping to build entrepreneurs’ capacity in Moldova for the past ten years, and linking them up to growth capital. Our missions are thus well aligned. The initiative is made possible thanks to support from the Argidius Foundation.
The CEED-Moldova Country Manager Anatol Palade explains: “In Moldova, we have many programs focused on the development of start-ups; however, there are few geared towards entrepreneurs who have reached a certain stage of development and who want to drive their companies’ growth. CEED will fill the gap by providing entrepreneurs know-how through its accelerator programs, while also connecting them to mentors and regional communities of entrepreneurs that can take their businesses to the next level.”
Mentor and entrepreneur recruitment for the first ‘CEED Grow’ class has been successfully completed, and the program is underway. Mentors are from industries that range from banking to retail to import/export while participants are in industries that include tourism to pharma to textiles. Overall, the opportunity to cross-share experiences will be great. Equally, we will have solid opportunities to connect both mentors and participants to others in the CEED community where they can both learn from others AND build their businesses.
We sincerely thank the Argidius Foundation for their support and we appreciate BAC for undertaking, with us, this new journey.
