The Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) has signed a memorandum of understanding with SeedBlink, the biggest equity crowdfunding platform in Romania, that aims to support the development of the local business environment by diversifying the financing sources and facilitating access to financial capital for local companies.

Bucharest Stock Exchange and SeedBlink plan to support entrepreneurs who have innovative business development ideas and need investment capital. The purpose of this partnership is to engage in developing the Romanian entrepreneurial and innovative ecosystem by easing access to financial capital for companies found in different development stages.

The memorandum stipulates that promising tech start-ups from SeedBlink’s portfolio that display steady growth will be helped to assess the opportunity to become public, by listing their shares on one of the markets managed by the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

The partnership offers benefits to the entrepreneurs looking to finance their further growth but also to the crowdfunding investors that can take part in public listings or private investments and then sell their shares on the BVB.

While equity crowdfunding has gained a lot of traction in Romania in the last year, equity crowdfunding platforms such as SeedBlink also need to find easy exit options for investors who buy into early-stage startups. Meanwhile, the Bucharest Stock Exchange has also seen increased activity on its AeRO market, dedicated to smaller companies, with three listings in the first quarter and several other transactions in progress.

“Bucharest Stock Exchange provides support for Romanian companies and being open to various financing routes is a sign of market maturity. We consider SeedBlink and their partners an incubator for new listings, and a channel contributing to the growth of the Romanian IT/Tech sector. This partnership aligns very well with our other initiatives, like “Made in Romania”, a program through which we will launch a platform dedicated to connecting the entrepreneurs with the private and public financiers,” stated Radu Hanga, Chairman of the Board of Governors, Bucharest Stock Exchange.

“In the last two years, we have noticed a significant increase in the interest shown by SMEs to get financing on the capital market. BVB’s AeRO market and SeedBlink’s platform are among the most important financing channels for these companies and through this cooperation we want to feature our complementary offers and to contribute to the continuous development of the financing infrastructure, to the benefit of the entrepreneurs, local investors, and the economy as a whole”, added Adrian Tanase, CEO, Bucharest Stock Exchange.

“As increasingly more companies will get financial capital from the private markets, it will become more important to support them with adequate corporate financing strategies and liquidity. BVB’s experience and reputation on the capital markets, as well as their support for public listings, complements very well our dynamic pipeline of pre-seed & seed tech companies, and the needs of SeedBlink’s start-up investors. We are thrilled to launch this partnership with Bucharest Stock Exchange!” said Andrei Dudoiu, Co-Founder & CEO SeedBlink.

The investment platform SeedBlink has built a base of over 4,000 online investors, held 36 financing rounds to date, and conveyed investments of more than EUR 12.6 mln into tech companies.

The partnership between Bucharest Stock Exchange and SeeBlink marks an important step towards modernizing and developing the Romanian capital market, boosting local companies’ access to multiple financing sources, helping them get listed on the stock exchange, and increasing the base of capital market investors.

editor@romania-Insider.com

(Photo source: Bucharest Stock Exchange)