In CEE, founders still often lack structured access to expertise that can transform their ideas into scalable businesses. Branding, cybersecurity, business process optimization, or partnerships management all require deep, specialized knowledge, but most early-stage teams either cannot afford it or do not know where to start.
The EBRD’s Star Venture Programme plays a crucial role in covering this need. Beyond Cambridge workshops, mentoring and investor pitch events, one of its most powerful yet lesser known components is tailored advisory.
For the startups selected in the 2025 cohort in Romania, Star Venture covers, through grant funding, the full net cost of advisory projects, up to a total budget of €40k (maximum €30k per project). In practice, this gives founders the chance to work with experienced consultants on issues that can unlock growth, without draining already limited resources.
It is a part of the programme that does not always make headlines but can make a difference. Advisory projects help founders become aware of blind spots, bring clarity to complex decisions, and accelerate the maturity of their business.
Founder Perspective: Jobful Case Study
To illustrate how this plays out in practice, we spoke with Mihai Cepoi, CEO and Co-Founder of Jobful, a Romanian startup helping companies streamline recruitment while offering candidates an engaging job-seeking experience. Having accessed funding for advisory through Star Venture in 2022, Mihai explains how external consultancy turned into a strategic advantage for his company.
Before joining EBRD’s Star Venture programme, had you ever worked with an external consultant?
When we joined Star Venture, Jobful was already in its third year from official launch and had pivoted once due to the impact of the pandemic. The business was still in its early stage, yet we had been hitting our heads against a couple of walls. External consultancy was part of our operational framework, but rather tactical and specific on some activities. It was only after we were able to access EBRD funding for advisory that we realized this could play as a strategic advantage.
What was your initial expectation when you heard advisory services were part of the Star Venture package?
We didn’t know what to expect, we were really enthusiastic about working with EBRD and the associated ecosystem, ready to absorb knowledge for the benefit of our venture. It was also very good timing for us, as we wanted to write a larger project for EIC Accelerator funding but couldn’t really afford the needed expertise.
Which area of consultancy did Jobful benefit from?
We received support from EBRD to work with an external consultant to write a proposal for EIC Accelerator, and the outcomes of this project (i.e. business plan) were later used in all our fundraising efforts.
After the initial experience with Star Venture, we included external consultancy services in our operational model for different areas. The second project we did, also supported by EBRD but under a different programme, was on positioning and go to market strategy. Over the past years we’ve also prioritized consultancy services for capital raising and AI strategy, using our own resources.
How did advisory support influence your growth trajectory?
This first project had multiple benefits, it created the context for us to invest more attention in the long-term vision and in identifying the change that we want to make through our innovation processes. This approach led to the creation of our social impact strategy, theory of change, and projects like Jobs4all serving vulnerable communities.
From a growth perspective, I believe it was rather an impact in our operations maturity. We now have this filter we add on our plans to identify if we have internal expertise on a topic, if we want to hire a new colleague with such expertise, or if it’s a “one time” need for which we have to find an external consultant.
What would you tell a founder hesitating to work with an external consultant, thinking that it’s “too corporate”?
No matter how brilliant or smart you are, there are areas or topics relevant to any startup in which, compared to an expert working on that for years, your knowledge and understanding is actually almost irrelevant. This is especially true considering the current market context and growing challenges of building a successful venture.
Advisory can play a great role in equipping startups with the ability to build lasting capacity from early on, embedding external expertise into internal decision-making processes, and sharpening the maturity of the company as it grows.
As more founders capitalize on this type of support, the region stands to gain companies that are resilient, competitive, and ready to scale beyond their home markets.
Inside EBRD’s Advisory Programme
Advisory under Star Venture is never delivered as an off-the-shelf package. Each project begins with a diagnostics process that identifies the specific challenges holding a company back. From there, the scope can stretch between key areas like strategy (business planning, financial management, fundraising), marketing & sales (branding, digital marketing, e-commerce optimization, partnerships, internationalization), sustainability (ESG strategy, environmental compliance), quality management (ISO standards, certifications), ICT (software development, cybersecurity), etc.
The common denominator is that every intervention is tailored to the needs of the company, connecting founders with experts who can deliver targeted solutions at the right moment in their growth. Another thing that all projects have in common: EBRD covers the cost.
The EBRD Star Venture Programme is active in 26 of the Bank’s countries of operation, having helped over 550 early-stage companies. In Romania, the programme is funded by the TaiwanBusiness-EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund through the EBRD’s Small Business Impact Fund (Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the TaiwanBusiness-EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund).
