Adria ScaleUp Initiative
The Adria ScaleUp Initiative is a regional platform dedicated to strengthening the conditions for startup growth and scale across the Adria and Western Balkans region. Established at the Summit in April 2025, the Initiative brings together policymakers, startup founders, investors, ecosystem organisations, academic institutions, and international partners around a shared ambition: to ensure that innovative companies can not only launch in the region but also scale, remain, and lead from it.
The Initiative operates as a collaborative and action-oriented process, focused on dialogue, coordination, and practical cooperation across borders. Rather than advancing one-off policy proposals, it works through sustained engagement, evidence-based discussion, and regional alignment to support long-term ecosystem development.
The Initiative was launched by Western Balkans Startup Alliance, Plug and Play Tech Center, and Sustineri Partners, with support from founders, investors, accelerators, and policymakers. This initiative marks a shift from discussion to coordinated action.
What the Initiative Does
Builds a Shared Evidence Base for Startup Policy
The Initiative supports the development of a shared regional understanding of startup policy challenges and identifies legal, regulatory, and administrative barriers that hinder companies’ ability to scale. Through consultations, comparative analysis, and structured dialogue with public institutions and ecosystem stakeholders, it translates on-the-ground experience into actionable policy insight.
During the first year of its work, the Initiative has focused on policy review and the systematic collection of evidence from across the startup ecosystem, with the aim of ensuring broad and meaningful engagement in this dialogue. Looking ahead, the objective is to bring together public authorities and decision-makers at the Adria Future Summit 2026 to assess the current state of startup-related public policies, with particular attention to emerging positive trends in Montenegro.
Encourages Regulatory Alignment and Benchmarking
By facilitating exchanges between countries and institutions, the Initiative promotes simpler, more predictable, and scale-up-friendly regulatory frameworks. It also supports benchmarking efforts that enable countries to compare progress, learn from one another, and encourage continuous improvement through transparency and peer learning.
Sustineri Partners is currently reviewing the potential design of the Adria Startup Friendly Index (ASFI) as a practical benchmarking tool to assess how conducive national environments are to startup growth and scale. To ensure credibility and policy relevance, the Adria Startup Friendly Index would be grounded in established international evaluation frameworks, while remaining tailored to the specific realities of the Adria region. The Index would focus on measurable, comparable, and policy-actionable criteria, combining quantitative data with qualitative insight from ecosystem stakeholders:
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- Regulatory Simplicity and Predictability (Ease and speed of company incorporation; Administrative burden for compliance and reporting; Stability and clarity of startup-related regulations over time): This matters because startups scale faster in environments where rules are clear, predictable, and proportionate.
- Taxation and Financial Environment (Tax treatment of startups and scaleups; Incentives for R&D, innovation, and reinvestment; Accessibility of early-stage and growth capital): Financial friction is a key determinant of whether startups remain and scale locally
- Labour Law and Talent Mobility (Flexibility of employment frameworks; Cost and complexity of hiring and dismissals; Access to international talent, including visas and remote work arrangements): Scaling companies require rapid team growth and cross-border talent access.
- Innovation and IP Frameworks (Protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights; Support for research commercialization; Collaboration between startups, universities, and research institutions): Innovation-driven growth depends on secure IP and effective knowledge transfer.
- Public–Startup Interface (Existence and effectiveness of startup liaison mechanisms; Openness of public institutions to consultation; Use of evidence and stakeholder input in policymaking): Continuous dialogue improves policy design and implementation.
- Ecosystem Support and Infrastructure (Availability of accelerators, incubators, and innovation hubs; Access to digital and physical infrastructure; Quality of business support services): Startups scale within ecosystems, not in isolation.
- Inclusiveness and ESG Alignment (Support for female-led and youth-led startups; Policies encouraging responsible and sustainable innovation; Alignment with broader ESG and social impact objectives): Inclusive ecosystems are more resilient and economically productive.
Supports Smarter, Inclusive Incentives for Innovation
The Initiative provides a structured space for policy dialogue on smart incentives, supporting governments and partners in exploring approaches that foster innovation, regional collaboration, and sustainability-aligned growth. Particular attention is given to incentive frameworks that enable youth-led, female-led, and impact-driven ventures to scale in a sustainable and inclusive manner.
Through the Adria Future Summit, the Initiative creates dedicated opportunities for startups to present and further develop their ideas, engage directly with policymakers, ecosystem partners, and potential investors, and contribute to informed discussion on how incentive schemes can better reflect the realities and needs of scaling companies.
Also, recognising that startups scale through access to markets, talent, capital, and networks, the Initiative works to improve regional connectivity. It fosters collaboration between ecosystems, supports cross-border mobility and knowledge exchange, and aligns with existing regional and international initiatives to maximise impact.
The Initiative advances inclusive, multi-stakeholder governance by creating regular opportunities for dialogue between startups, investors, public institutions, and development partners. Through consultations, forums, and joint working formats, it helps ensure that startup policy remains responsive, participatory, and grounded in real-world needs.
Reach out
The Adria ScaleUp Initiative is designed as a living process, evolving through ongoing meetings, consultations, and partnerships. Progress is reviewed collectively and reported at future Summits to ensure transparency, accountability, and continuity. By convening diverse actors around a shared regional agenda, the Initiative aims to position the Adria region as a space for scalable, responsible, and forward-looking innovation. If you want to engage, reach out to ASI contact point Nedim Jahic (nedim@sustineri-partners.com).