The people behind the tech: From university venture to award-winning company

On 10th June, NET2GRID Hellas was honored by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for its innovation and entrepreneurship as a university spin-off company. The award ceremony that brought together 54 startups and companies tied to Aristotle University's broader ecosystem, celebrated the spirit of entrepreneurship and fostered connections across academia and industry. From AI and software start ups, to internationally-known designing agencies and consultancies, the event boasted a big roast of successful local and international entrepreneurs. Dimitrios Doukas, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of NET2GRID Hellas, accepted the award on behalf of the company.

NET2GRID’s Hellas journey

To explore the roots of NET2GRID Hellas, we spoke both with Dimitrios Doukas and Antonios Chrysopoulos, Director οf Innovation and Τechnical Growth and co-founder of NET2GRID Hellas

‘’We met with Dimitrios Doukas at university, when we both studied electrical and computer engineering. It was only when we were in PhDs, myself in software engineering and Dimitrios in an energy-related topic, where we collaborated more closely.’’ says Antonios.

‘’We participated in a research project on Energy Data Analytics and Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM). We decided that we would like to build on the skillset and expertise developed throughout this project, started working on a business model and pitching our idea to our - limited back then, I must admit - international network. We even thought of kick-off a spin off to benefit from the university’s support. It was at that time when we crossed paths with Bert Lutje Berenbroek, who had already founded NET2GRID in the Netherlands, and decided that joining his vision could be a win-win for both sides”, completes Dimitrios.

In 2017, NET2GRID Hellas was officially founded, with Thessaloniki becoming home to most of the company's technology teams, data scientists, cloud and hardware engineers, and energy specialists. The team’s rapid growth continued after a significant investment in 2021 by EDP, Shell, and EPG, expanding to include marketing, sales, product and customer support across both the Greek and Dutch offices. Learn more about the company’s history here.

Meet NET2RIDers in Greece

Today NET2GRIDers are talented individuals who come from different cultural backgrounds, graduates of international universities in the US, UK, Netherlands, Greece and across Europe, with 95% of them holding Master degrees and few holding PhDs.

‘’We have maintained strong ties with The Aristotle University. Plus, Ι used to teach at Αristotle University. The result is that highly-knowledgeable and skilled students have joined NET2GRID after university as interns and later on stayed within the company, progressed and grew further’’, says Antonios.

A good example is Christos Athanasiadis, now Product Manager at NET2GRID, where he started in 2019 as a machine learning engineer intern. ‘’We have a big pool of software and computer engineers, electrical engineers and data scientists coming from a number of  universities’’. Explore the NET2GRIDers team in more detail here. 

Vision for the future

Reflecting on the recent award and NET2GRID Hellas’ journey, Dimitrios Dοukas said ‘’When we founded NET2GRID Hellas, we were just a small team of 5 people. Since then, our Greek office has grown significantly. Throughout this journey, we’ve maintained strong ties with the local academic community, not only because we truly believe in the potential of graduates from these institutions but also as a way to give back to the community that helped shape us. This commitment continues to shape the way we grow and strengthen our teams.’’