From Innovation to Scale: What Does It Take to Grow a Romanian Tech Company?

9 hours ago

4 min read

A strong product may get a technology company started, but it takes much more to turn it into a business that can grow across markets. Strategy, leadership, access to capital, the ability to adapt and, increasingly, a clear understanding of how technology such as AI changes the economics of the business all become part of the equation.

These were some of the topics at the centre of the September edition of Networking & Social Night by Transilvania IT Cluster & ABC Incubator, held on September 17 in Cluj-Napoca. For this special edition, we joined forces with Enterprise Investors to bring the investment perspective into a conversation usually centred around technology, entrepreneurship and innovation.

The evening brought together founders, executives, investors and members of the local business and technology community for a discussion that went beyond the question of how to raise capital and looked more closely at what actually makes a company ready to scale.

What do investors actually look for?

The evening opened with a presentation by Rafał Bator, Partner at Enterprise Investors, who offered a private equity perspective on companies with strong growth potential.

Enterprise Investors has been active in Central and Eastern Europe since 1990, focusing on mid-market buyouts and growth financing. Over this period, the firm has raised ten funds and invested EUR 2.5 billion in 164 companies across the region. Romania has been part of its investment landscape since 1999, with EUR 217 million invested in Romanian businesses to date.

The presentation also placed Romania in the broader Central and Eastern European investment landscape. Among the areas of interest are companies with the potential to expand beyond their home markets, including businesses in IT and other sectors where companies from the region increasingly compete internationally through productivity, efficiency and innovation.

From a promising company to a scalable business

The conversation then moved from the investor perspective to the realities companies face as they grow.

The panel “From Innovation to Scale: Investing in Romania’s Tech-Driven Companies”, moderated by Bianca Muntean, Executive Director of Transilvania IT Cluster, brought together Rafał Bator, Robert Maftei, CEO of PragmaGO Romania, and Andrei Racu, Mergers and Acquisitions Manager at AROBS Group.

The discussion looked at growth from three different perspectives: that of an investor, a company expanding a technology-enabled business into Romania and a Romanian technology group that has grown both organically and through acquisitions.

One of the central questions was what separates a promising company from one that is genuinely ready to scale. The conversation touched on strategy, leadership, the ability to build repeatable business models and the role investors can play beyond providing capital — from strengthening management teams and commercial strategy to supporting acquisitions and international expansion.

The experiences of AROBS and PragmaGO brought concrete examples into the discussion. AROBS offered the perspective of a Romanian entrepreneurial company that developed into an international technology group, while PragmaGO brought the experience of adapting a business model developed in Poland to the Romanian market. This opened a broader conversation about what can be replicated when entering a new market and what needs to be adapted to local customers, partnerships and business realities.

How AI is changing the conversation about growth

AI inevitably became part of the discussion, but not as a technology trend in itself. Instead, the speakers looked at how it is beginning to change the way technology companies operate and grow.

For technology businesses, AI is already raising practical questions about productivity, pricing, delivery models, team structures and the skills companies will need in the coming years. In financial services, the discussion focused on where AI can create measurable business value, from faster processes and better productivity to improved risk management.

From an investor’s perspective, another question becomes increasingly important: how can a company demonstrate that AI is creating real and sustainable value rather than simply becoming part of its positioning?

From ambition to execution

The final part of the panel focused on what happens after a company decides it wants to grow.

For some businesses, the next step may mean developing new capabilities internally. For others, acquisitions can provide a faster route to new expertise, customers or markets. The discussion also looked at how companies prepare for international expansion and what investors expect from founders and management teams once an investment is made.

There is no single formula for scaling a technology company. Growth is usually the result of a series of decisions — about people, markets, capital, acquisitions, products and partnerships — made at different stages of the company’s development.

The formal discussion was followed by Q&A and the familiar informal part of Networking & Social Night: dinner, drinks and networking, giving participants the opportunity to continue the conversations directly with the speakers and connect with founders, executives, investors and other members of the community.

For Transilvania IT Cluster, this edition was also an opportunity to bring a different perspective into the local technology conversation. Access to capital matters, but so does understanding how investors think, learning from companies that have already gone through different stages of growth and creating the connections that can help ambitious Romanian businesses take their next step.