Original Article Here in Greek

Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 08:19

By Eleftheria Piperopoulou

Dimitris Georgakopoulos embodies perhaps better than any other Greek the so-called "American dream". Starting his journey in America in the 90s, the Greek businessman sees this country as a platform of opportunities.

His work at PwC and Publicis Sapient is a decisive stepping stone for his professional development, while in 2004, trying to find a solution to a personal need, he started Buildium - a real estate management platform, which in 2019 sold for 580 million. dollars Then, he returns permanently to Greece, bringing with him not only the experience from America, but also the spirit of social responsibility.

Among other things, he created the Helidoni Foundation, a charity that embraces and supports ideas, actions and businesses with a social footprint. It is worth mentioning that he also participates in the board of directors of The Hellenic Initiative (THI), the organization founded in 2012 by members of the Greek diaspora with the aim of responding to the needs of our country in dealing with the effects of the economic crisis. In an interview with Capital.gr, Mr. Georgakopoulos talks, among other things, about life in America, his career, Buildium, but also the reasons why he returned to Greece and his current activities in our country, through the Helidoni Foundation, but also Zeno Capital. He lived in America for almost 30 years, from 1993 to 2021.

He initially went to study (finance and computer science), then started his career and created his family. "I experienced America as a hospitable country for entrepreneurship, with many opportunities, where if someone really had the will but also the necessary experience and knowledge, he had great chances to succeed. I also found myself in this fertile ground," says Mr. Georgakopoulos at Capital.gr Mr. Georgakopoulos started working as a consultant in two companies - PwC and Publicis Sapient - undertaking many projects from different industries, which, as he emphasizes, was a catalyst, as it provided him with an important background for As he continues, he lived through the entire period of the internet/dot-com boom and the bust in 2000-2002. "That's when I realized that there is no certainty in any job or business and that everything is potentially precarious. This thought is what gave me the impetus to create something of my own, as I found it less risky to do so than to follow a professional career in multinationals that operated in a fluid and vulnerable environment”.

The founding of Buildium

That's how the idea for Buildium came about: "At that time, two friends and partners and I had invested in some properties and we had a personal need to find a way to manage them more efficiently. That's how the idea of ​​Buildium was born. There were few alternatives on the same item at the time and we had the confidence and know-how to make something better than what was on the market at that time."

So, in 2004, he co-founded Buildium with Michael Monteiro, starting with a small investment of money, but a lot of personal work. Buildium provided a property management software platform aimed mainly at small and medium portfolios (owners of up to 1,000 properties each). It should be noted that real estate management software are unified cloud-based platforms that bring together all the necessary services/tools for the user (property owner) so that he can manage all matters related to his property, such as accounting (receipts, payments) , legal (contracts with tenants, agreements with suppliers), building maintenance (repairs, improvements, etc.), communication (between owners and tenants).

Buildium was founded in 2004 and took until 2008 to reach 500 customers. From 2009 onwards, the two partners were allowed to be paid, as well as hire staff, while the company doubled in size every year. 2012 was a milestone year for the company: it had already reached 5 million in annual revenue and around 5,000 customers. Then the two partners decided to sell a small part of the business (10%) to an outside investor. "The reason was because we believed that this move would give us another perspective on the operation and development of Buildium, that it would put us on a new trajectory", says Mr. Georgakopoulos. The sequel confirmed the two founders, since from 2012 by 2016 the company's revenue had grown from $5 to $25 million and its staff had grown from 25 to 100 employees.

2016 was another important year as they gave the majority of the company to a private equity firm (Sumeru Equity Partners) specialized in preparing such companies, such as Buildium, for IPO. However, this did not proceed as there was another development: "We received a very strong offer to acquire the company from a major player in the field, RealPage. So in 2019 we made the final decision to shake hands and accept the offer". Buildium is not, however, the only business "child" of Dimitris Georgakopoulos. Together with two other co-founders (Dave Wong and Geoff Roberts) he founded Outseta in 2016 - a one-stop-shop of core software aimed at early-stage subscription companies. As Mr. Georgakopoulos explains, "Outseta was founded for two reasons: on the one hand to improve the efficiency of such companies, as we observed that they had to combine dozens of software tools to serve their operational needs, on the other hand to experiment in an organizational model and business purpose that results in the people in it being more satisfied in both their personal and professional lives.” Mr. Georgakopoulos still remains with the company, but offers a limited percentage of his time.

The decision to return

As Mr. Georgakopoulos reveals, he decided to return to Greece when the sale process of Buildium began. "At that time I had begun to think strongly about how I would like to spend my time and for what purposes. I felt that I had much more to give to Greece than to America. Besides, I always wanted to return to my homeland, so the timing of the sale gave me the impetus to do it", he says. The return to Greece was accompanied by another important decision both for him and for our country: the establishment of the Helidoni Foundation. "At the end of 2019 the my husband and I founded the Helidoni Foundation. The decision to create a charitable foundation came from our desire to give back to society and contribute in this way to solving important social and environmental problems."

Helidoni's field of action is primarily Greece. It supports social and environmental initiatives - at whatever stage they are at, from the conception of an idea to their implementation and their organizational and financial independence - so that their work has the greatest possible positive impact on society. His active action began in March 2020, in the middle of the covid pandemic, and the first donations he made were to NGOs in the health sector focusing on vulnerable groups (Hospital, Doctors of the World). At the same time, in the same year and until the middle of 2022, the foundation deepened with a parallel mapping of both the problems/challenges of the Greek society and the NGOs in the country, in order to understand their work and how it responds to the existing needs.

In this context, the Helidoni Foundation has collaborated with and financed several organizations active in various fields. Examples: - Social entrepreneurship & innovation (Higgs, The Hellenic Initiative through the Venture Impact Awards, Impact Hub Athens) - Inclusion and empowerment of vulnerable social groups through education and art (Museum of Cycladic Art, Eyes of Light, Social Hackers Academy) - Regenerative agriculture (Southern Lights) - Circular economy (InCommOn).

From mid-2022 until today, the Helidoni Foundation has focused on specific issues in the light of systemic change. "So, we planted the seeds and we expect them to blossom, knowing that time, work and a lot of patience and perseverance are required. We are nevertheless optimistic", emphasizes Mr. Georgakopoulos and adds: The issues on which the foundation is now focusing are: - the sustainable /conscious consumption & production - the social economy and more specifically the adoption of a responsible management model by for-profit and non-profit companies (steward ownership) - the offer of social service (civic service) - sustainable mobility and more specifically micro-mobility (micromobility) As he explains, the foundation tries to find people/groups working for these goals and help them achieve them. "In some cases, we found structured organizations (Ecogenia – civic service and Cities for Cycling - micromobility) , but in the other two cases we had to start from scratch (Ten Million Hands – conscious consumption & production, Stewards – steward-ownership). In general, in the aforementioned programs we do not only provide funding but we actively participate in the entire journey with personal work, consulting and networking, we are hands-on", he clarifies.

Zeno Capital

But Helidoni is not the only occupation of Mr. Georgakopoulos in our country. At the same time, he has also founded Zeno Capital, which supports innovative business ideas that respond to the challenges of the sustainability of the planet, promote social responsibility and at the same time promote transparency, fairness and integrity. "In conjunction with my coming to Greece, I wanted to dedicate time and money to Greek projects with a positive social impact that aim for zero emissions and zero waste", he explains about this decision. So far, Zeno Capital has invested in 10 companies, amounts from €50,000 to €400,000.More specifically, its areas of interest are:

-About Zero Emissions: Climate Tech, Renewable Energy Sources and Smart Energy Systems, Electric Mobility, Climate Fintech, Green Buildings and Green Cities. 

-About Zero Waste: Recycling and Reuse, Sustainable Agriculture, Circular Economy, Ethical Brands, AgTech.

Some very interesting cases in Zeno Capital's portfolio are: Open Farm, Brite Solar, Swaplanet, Wecook, while by the end of 2023, it is expected to invest in Terra Robotics. "There is intense activity, great ideas and enthusiasm in the Greek startup ecosystem, which is very positive and promising. Unfortunately, however, currently ideas far outnumber the available capital directed towards startups, especially when they are in pre-seed and at the seed funding stage", says the founder of Zeno Capital. "Over the past 4 years we have planted many seeds, both philanthropically and entrepreneurially, supporting many new initiatives on their journey from early stage to viability stage. Therefore, what I seek and long for in the next period is to see these seeds grow, blossom and bear fruit", concludes Mr. Georgakopoulos.