EBRD Star Venture Programme showcases positive impact on startup success, supported by IfM Engage workshops
A recent Impact Brief, “Boosting startups: Evidence from the EBRD Star Venture programme”, assesses the influence of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) Star Venture programme on startup success. The Strategic Compass workshops, facilitated by IfM Engage, underpin the support provided in the programme and play a significant role in its success.
The EBRD’s Star Venture programme targets promising startups, accelerators and consultants in 26 countries to unleash their full potential, from North Africa to the Western Balkans and Central Asia. Through strategic workshops, world-class advisory, mentoring and access to finance and market development, the programme helps startups to develop and scale rapidly.
In order to assess the success of the programme, the EBRD’s Office of the Chief Economist has recently published an Impact Brief: Boosting startups: Evidence from the EBRD Star Venture programme.
The Impact Brief presents a rigorous analysis of the EBRD’s Star Venture programme and provides the first cross-country evidence of how effective technical assistance for startups can be. EBRD has compared key performance metrics of high-potential startups included in the programme to a similar set of non-participating startups. The analysis shows marked improvements in funding, number of employees and LinkedIn followers, which is used as a proxy for enhanced market access and brand visibility, for those startups included.
IfM Engage delivers a key part of the programme through Strategic Compass workshops, offering the startups intensive business diagnostics and training delivered over five, two hour-sessions. In the workshops, founders and key stakeholders work with an expert facilitator to take a step back, determine strategic priorities and improve decision-making, all with the overarching goal of helping the startup to identify priority areas for scaling up, assessing market opportunities, improving operational effectiveness and mitigating risks.
Peter Templeton, Executive Director, Strategic Development at IfM Engage, says, “Strategic Compass is the first step in each Star Venture startup’s journey to growth. Although many of the IfM’s methods originate from research into the manufacturing sector, Strategic Compass is completely sector-agnostic. Within the Star Venture programme, it has been applied successfully with startups focusing on AI, agritech, fin-tech, travel sectors and many more.”
Feedback from participants of the Strategic Compass workshops included in the Impact Brief is overwhelmingly positive, with the vast majority of respondents agreeing the workshops helped them:
• Develop a clear business goal
• Identify and select strategic opportunities
• Create a vision and action plan
• Build a consensus on business priorities
• Foster collaborative relationships.
The Impact Brief concludes that participants find developing near-term ambitions and helping them identify the right strategic opportunities are the most effective tools gained, both of which are catalysed by the Strategic Compass workshops. The findings emphasise the impact Strategic Compass has on the success of start-ups.
“The feedback from participants on the Strategic Compass provides evidence for the important foundations it builds for developing and growing a successful startup”, says Peter. “We greatly enjoy working with both EBRD and the Star Venture startups and are looking forward to expanding our collaboration to 6 further countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2025.”
Read the Impact Brief – Boosting startups: Evidence from the EBRD Star Venture programme
Explore if Strategic Compass workshops at IfM Engage are a fit for your programme: https://engage.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/strategic-compass