ResNovae & Renvis: The Winning Startups of the ESG Challenge by the Hellenic Development Bank – Signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation with the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation – Hellenic Development Bank

The ESG Innovation Challenge, organized by the Hellenic Development Bank (HDB) in collaboration with the startup registry “Elevate Greece”, has concluded. The winner in the ESG category was ResNovae, while the winner in the Innovation category was Renvis.

Awards Ceremony and HDB Funding Agreement

The Deputy Minister of Development and Investments for Public Investments and NSRF, Mr. Giannis Tsakiris, presented the honorary award for the ESG category to the winning company, ResNovae, and its representative, Mr. Nikos Kakogiannis. Likewise, the Deputy Minister responsible for Research and Technology, Mr. Christos Dimas, presented the award for the Innovation category to Renvis and its representative, Mr. Konstantinos Papapanagiotou.

Specifically, in a special ceremony held on Friday, December 3, at the headquarters of the Hellenic Development Bank, in the presence of Deputy Ministers Mr. Tsakiris and Mr. Dimas, the President & CEO of Hellenic Development Bank, Ms. Athina Chatzipetrou, congratulated the representatives of the winning companies. She also announced the additional possibility of funding a PoC (Proof of Concept) contract up to €40,000 in total for both thematic categories (€20,000 for each category).

HDB aims to facilitate businesses’ access to financing sources and to enhance their bankability, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. In this context, through these two PoCs, HDB plans to implement innovative digital solutions that could form part of an alternative credit and investment evaluation process (Credit/Investment Scoring), going beyond traditional banking criteria. This approach aims to expand the scope of businesses considered bankable.

The competition, which launched on September 11, 2021, attracted strong interest from startups. The submitted proposals were evaluated by a judging panel that included:

• Mr. Michalis Andreadis, Chief Director of Operations & Market Development at Hellenic Exchanges S.A.
• Distinguished members of the academic community, including Mr. Haris Doukas, Associate Professor of Energy & Environmental Policy at NTUA; Mr. Angelos Tsakanikas, Associate Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at NTUA; and Mr. Antonis Livieratos, Assistant Professor of Business Administration & Organizations at NKUA and scientific advisor to the startup accelerator “Archimedes.”
• Mr. Stergios Sougioutzoglou, General Director of HDB
• Mr. Panagiotis Papageorgiou, Director of Business Innovation at HDB
• Mr. Konstantinos Kalogerakis, Director of FinTech Innovation at HDB

     Memorandum of Understanding – MoU

• Building on the constructive collaboration with Elevate Greece, which led to the realization of the ESG Innovation Challenge, the Chairwoman of HDB, Ms. Chatzipetrou, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Deputy Minister, Mr. Dimas, during the award ceremony, aiming to expand the cooperation between the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation (GSRI) and HDB.
• The purpose of the MoU is to explore partnerships in the context of supporting innovative entrepreneurship and export development, participating in mentoring and networking activities, exchanging know-how, and other related synergies.

Competition Winners

ResNovae

• ResNovae PC operates in the field of investment consulting, specializing in sustainable finance and ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) performance evaluation for companies and organizations.
• As part of the competition, the company proposed the creation of ESGenius!, a cloud-based, scientifically grounded, fully transparent automated ESG management platform. ESGenius! integrates AI processes and Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), providing an evaluation framework fully aligned with all internationally recognized ESG frameworks and standards.

Renvis

• Renvis provides data-driven business solutions to support effective decision-making.
• For the competition, the company proposed the creation of the “SOFIA” system. SOFIA is a Decision Support System that provides access to models and scoring dashboards, facilitating the monitoring and automation of the innovation measurement process and enabling comparative evaluation according to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).