Professor AnnaLee Saxenian, the startup ecosystems guru and researcher, coined the term “New Argonauts” to describe how foreign-born entrepreneurs traveled between Silicon Valley and their home countries in search of new opportunities. She was of course inspired by the story of Jason and the Argonauts, and benchmarked it to explain how these brave, young entrepreneurs turned the “brain drain” in their home countries into “brain circulation”. They would succeed in Silicon Valley and then return home with new skills, knowledge, connections, and even capital to create local and regional advantages. 

In the past decade, Cyprus had sought the rise of its own Argonauts. Young Cypriots who successfully launched their startups overseas, raised capital, or were acquired by larger organizations. Eventually, returning home, setting base, investing in other startups, and sharing their knowledge with other entrepreneurs in our ecosystem. Examples include Trouva, Plum and Hellas Direct, and others, who extended part of their operations in Cyprus; or Malloc, which now fully operates in Cyprus after raising funds from Y Combinator in Silicon Valley. The list goes on.

Last year, another Cypriot “Argonaut” achieved great success in London. I am of course referring to the acquisition of Stagedoor by Trafalgar Entertainment.

Stagedoor became well known to any friend of theater in London. It all started in 2015, when the owners of Fresh Target Theater and theater patrons, Yiannis Gavrielides and Paris Erotokritou, conceived the idea of creating a social network for theatergoers. An app where friends of theater could follow their favorite theaters and actors, rate plays, and find tickets. They soon joined forces with Michael Hadjijoseph, a rising star product manager, who at the time worked for Onefinestay  and Alex Cican, a brilliant product designer who was also at the time involved with Covve. Michael soon took over as Stagedoor’s CEO and Alex as CPO, with the responsibility of manifesting the idea into a startup company.

Throughout the years, the Stagedoor team, together with the support of Invelopment Partners, the Cyprus-based venture studio that is led by Theo Middleton and Yiannis Gavrielides, managed to build a new one-stop shop destination where Londoners discover and book theater. Stagedoor sells millions of pounds sterling worth of tickets each year and has been the official app for some of the biggest theater festivals in the UK. In 2018, Lyn Gardner, who was voted UK’s most trusted critic, also joined Stagedoor, after working for 20+ years for the Guardian, bringing a new level of credibility and editorial capability to the app.

Even through difficult times, Stagedoor persevered. When the pandemic forced the closing of London theaters for almost 2 years, the Stagedoor team chose to fight back, launching a fan experience platform called “OFFBACKSTAGE,” which enabled  fans to meet their favorite actors and musicians online, as well as watch them perform for a small fee. This strategy gave Stagedoor the lifeline it needed to sail past the lockdowns, and at the same time support struggling artists.

Stagedoor bounced back successfully, once theaters reopened, seeing strong exponential growth and launched another industry first - its all digital, city- wide Loyalty card for theater.  It soon caught the eye of Trafalgar Entertainment - the global entertainment powerhouse behind a number of theaters, cinemas, productions, and ticketing platforms across various countries. They have now acquired Stagedoor, retaining the team onboard, and doubling down on its vision for Stagedoor to become the the definitive brand for theater goers.

Stagedoor CEO, Michael Hadjijoseph, shared with me that “Cyprus has an ever growing startup community full of talented engineers, marketeers, designers, sales people and operators. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been quite close to the evolution of this community since 2011 which enabled us to meet some amazing people who have been instrumental to the success of Stagedoor. 

"We'd like to thank everyone who was part of our journey and especially my Co-founder Alex Cican and Invelopment Partners, as well as team members Chris Chacholiades and Evelina Stephanou who have stood by us since day one. They say entrepreneurship is a lonely game; I can genuinely say that there was not one day where I felt alone during this journey. We're excited to be joining the Trafalgar family in this next chapter. Our aligned vision, together with the strong synergies and capabilities of Trafalgar Entertainment, further equip us to realize Stagedoor’s full potential in becoming the new home of theater. We can't wait to see what the future holds.”

Invelopment Partners co-founders, Theo Middleton and Yiannis Gavrielides highlight that this is only the beginning and that we should soon see more startups in their portfolio making their way to the global spotlight.  As Yiannis tells me, “We founded Invelopment Partners to empower talented people and build new ventures together. We are very proud of Stagedoor and what Michael, Alex and the rest of the team have achieved. We can’t wait to pass down the excitement, the learnings, and to leverage the fast growing Invelopment community to drive our next venture forward.”

Earlier this year at the Reflect Festival, I talked about the evolution of the Cyprus startup ecosystem and what’s next for us. The most important elements needed by our ecosystem right now are more funding, more deal-flow, and more global connections through our founders. It’s time to scale. With startups like Stagedoor, we are getting there.