We help entepreneurs succeed in transforming promising ideas into scalable business.
Orange Grove empowers talented individuals to grow their vision into innovative ventures. We support aspiring and early-stage founders through horizontal and vertical entrepreneurship programmes, skills development and transfer of international know-how. Orange Grove provides unique networking opportunities as it connects participants to its global ecosystem of trainers and volunteer mentors, while offering access to the extended contacts network of its partners, sponsors and the Netherlands Embassy in Greece.
We are an initiative of the Netherlands Embassy in Greece, operated by the non-profit Ithaca and are financially supported by, local and international, companies and grant-making foundations.
We operate offices in Athens and Patras but are a remote-first incubator, providing our programmes through an online training platform, thus removing geographic limitations from the growth of innovative entrepreneurship.
We constantly evolve to stay ahead in an ever-changing environment.
Orange Grove opened its doors in September 2013. Launching initially as a co-working space, where new entrepreneurs could find the support they needed to transform their ideas into successful ventures, it soon evolved into one of the first and most innovative incubators in Greece.
With a powerful network of mentors and partners internationally and a robust local community, Orange Grove created an environment conducive to growth and innovation, contributing to the strengthening of the startup ecosystem in Greece. In 2017, Orange Grove expanded to Patras, firmly believing that innovation goes beyond the borders of capital cities. In a country with a population spread-out in one of the longest coastlines in the world, innovation-potential could be anywhere.
So, taking a step further, in 2019, Orange Grove transitioned into a hybrid incubator offering most of its services online, through its custom e-learning platform and proprietary digital content. Now anyone, from anywhere would be offered the same opportunity to grow.
A business idea is a hypothesis. We bring the tools to test the hypothesis.
In the last decade, Orange Grove has run +20 Incubation and Acceleration programmes along with +25 Bootcamps helping idea-owners and early-stage entrepreneurs validate their business hypotheses, build traction and grow purposeful ventures. We work with our founders on their mindset, skills, tools and connections.
We do not believe in inventing the wheel time and again. Entrepreneurs face similar challenges. Hence, we promote peer-to-peer learning, know-how exchange and sharing of best practices. We build international bridges and promote synergies. And, act as a knowledge-sharing platform.
Furthermore, we launch initiatives on subjects we see as pivotal, such as bridging the gap between academia and the market or promoting the advancement of the 17 SDGs through tangible entrepreneurial innovations.
Building a venture is good. Building an impact-driven innovative venture is better. Building an impact-driven innovation ecosystem is even better.
We are impact-driven, sector, age and geography agnostic, and take no equity from our founders.
We create, grow and connect networks. Networks empower entrepreneurs, accelerate growth and boost the strength and impact of startup ecosystems locally, nationally and on an international scale.
But to do this, we need to build pipelines of innovation doers. Success stories don’t spring out of the blue. Exits don’t happen overnight. Not all high-potential ideas continue their entrepreneurial journey. This is why we commit to a long-term hands-on support to our founders, from ideation to scale-up growth. And design a vast array of programmes, with a multi-level approach, involving from young school students to researchers and university stakeholders, organizations and corporates, locally and abroad, to contribute to the development of the necessary innovation funnels and (impact-driven) entrepreneurial mindset for the ecosystem to grow.
We believe that innovative enterpreneurship is the catalyst of change.
Our vision is to help founders create impactful companies. Value creation is at the centre of everything we do, be it a fast-growing scalable company or a social enterprise that will change lives. To this end, we have built a network of distinguished professionals who offer talented new entrepreneurs the tools to leverage their potential, build future-proof ventures and drive sustainable growth.
We support a diversified portfolio because only through diversity will we achieve the creativity needed for innovation to grow. And we bring opportunity to where the talent is, rather than the other way around, as we firmly believe that innovation has the power to transform local economies and fuel equal-paced growth in all regions of the country.
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