Dreamups - Annex 7 Grantee Final Report

The project aimed to educate, inspire, accelerate, and facilitate access to first money for 2,500 people from Moldova. During the grant period, February 1, 2023, to January 31, 2024, the Dreamups team, together with its mentors, partners, and team, educated and inspired 2,500 people from Moldova. The team reached the number of 1,000,000 Euro investments in startups facilitated by Mozaic, starting from 2020, with 90,000 Euro investments in 2023. Additionally, 30,000 Euro grants were offered to 11 startups. One of the flagship programs undertaken as part of the grant was the launch of Moldova's first Product Leadership and Management School. The school aimed to help IT company owners and their top management innovate within their service-based businesses and launch new scalable products. The program involved 7 IT companies and up to 40 employees in a three-fold practical pilot program with a curriculum designed specifically for Moldovan IT companies. The program was led by top industry experts, working with founders, senior product managers, or C-level executives from global companies such as Miro, Google, Uber, Bolt, Uipath, Parkopedia, Index.dev, Docusign, Strategizer, and others. The program included sessions dedicated to leadership, teaching the vision of product leadership, and sessions dedicated to employees, offering them knowledge on the role of product managers in an IT service-based company. Another flagship program launched for the first time at Dreamups was the Upnext traction accelerator for tech startups after the MVP stage. The program involved 6 promising startups in a 6-month accelerator and incubator, investing 60,000 Euro, aiming to help them achieve significant traction of x10. Five startups graduated with very solid progress. The Dreamups team also designed and launched the Dreamicon startup conference, a tech startup conference with over 300 participants. The conference was a meeting point for the tech startup community, where the team presented Dreamups' vision for the Moldovan ecosystem on the way to the country's first unicorn. The conference included a matchmaking session with startups and investors, a pitch competition, and closed a deal for a 30,000 Euro investment in Robolex startup. The national pilot project Verde Play was another massive activity developed this year. The project combined innovation, product thinking, and environment in a practical, fun course for school students. The project involved 30 teachers from 30 schools and 770 students in this new course for a period of up to 5 months. A total of 800 people from all over Moldova learned to apply technology tools and design thinking principles in practice to solve their environmental problems in their communities and schools. The Dreamups team also partnered with Orange to develop entrepreneurship and coding skills programs for all, under the newly launched future skills hub in Moldova - Orange Digital Center. The programs had a total number of 400 beneficiaries, with 500,000 MDL in grants for 10 newly created start-up concepts and more than 40 new tech experts ready to enter a junior position in the IT field. The project's core programs objectives for the 2023 year included involving up to 50 teams in the 4 months, remote, idea-stage startup accelerator - Upcelerator, involving up to 10 startups in the 6 months traction accelerator - Upnext, validating the business model for the financial sustainability program for Dreamups organization - Moonshot, and involving 200 pupils in the 5 weeks startup educational national program Startup School. Almost all of the Dreamups' goals have been met, as described below. The Upcelerator program, a remote idea-stage tech startup accelerator, was designed for those who have a business idea (or an early-stage product) and need guidance, advice, and mentoring to grind it and build it. The program took place in English, fully remote, from February 27 until June 29, and was meant to cover every process in an early-stage scalable startup with a 16-module curriculum and with the help of 30+ mentors, entrepreneurs, and experts from more than 10 countries. The program's framework was a Business Model Canvas, structured in 16 modules with a focus on customer development. Each module consisted of live sessions on Zoom with top-notch experts on specific topics, coaching and ongoing feedback for founders from resident mentors, one-on-one mentoring hours with session experts, homework, working groups, and pitching. The program received 100 applications, involved 35 local and international experts-mentors, and held 20 LIVE sessions, including a specific Q&A with resident mentors on customer development module and two evaluations - Midterm and Final one. A total of 17 teams with software and hardware product ideas entered the program, and 6