For Founders
We work with early-stage founders who are still shaping what they are building. Our role is to support discovery, validation, and early venture formation before acceleration, scale narratives, or most capital involvement.
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Where ideas become ventures.
Ideas Forward is a deep tech startup hub working at the very beginning of company building, when ideas are still unproven and choices still shape outcomes. We work with founders and research-driven teams to reduce early-stage risk through structured validation, training, and selective, hands-on collaboration.
For Research & Academia
We work with universities, research groups, and technology transfer actors to translate research into credible early ventures. Our role spans program design, delivery, and hands-on support for lab-to-market and spin-off formation.
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What we actually do
We operate before product-market fit, before acceleration, and before most capital involvement. Our work focuses on decision-making, evidence, and execution — not pitch readiness or scale narratives.
This means working closely with founders and research teams at the stage where the right question matters more than the right answer. We help teams figure out what they are actually building, for whom, and whether the evidence supports continuing.
Focus areas
- Structured validation and discovery
- Founder and researcher training
- Venture enablement program design
- Selective incubation
Headquarters - Thessaloniki, Greece
Ideas Forward is based in Thessaloniki, Greece. Our headquarters supports daily venture work, close collaboration with founders and research teams, and on-the-ground program delivery.
Our projects and partnerships extend across European ecosystems, but our base of operations keeps us embedded in one of the most active research and innovation corridors in Southeast Europe.
Selectivity by design
Ideas Forward is not a volume-driven organization. We work with a limited number of founders, teams, and institutional partners at any given time in order to remain operationally involved and accountable for outcomes.
Selectivity is a constraint that enables depth of work, not a branding posture. It means we can commit to real involvement rather than surface-level advisory — staying present through validation, early decisions, and the hard operational work that determines whether an idea survives contact with reality.
We may selectively incubate a small number of teams after prior collaboration, with deeper operational involvement and aligned incentives. This is a downstream outcome of working together, not an entry point.