How ICT Hub graduated from Swiss EP

Over the past 10 years of our work, only a few organizations have reached this level, where we can say they have graduated from Swiss EP. One of them is certainly ICT Hub settled in Belgrade, Serbia.

Founded in 2014, ICT Hub continues to operate and remains one of the most recognized organizations in the Serbian and regional startup and innovation ecosystem.

The beginning of ICT Hub

In 2014, ICT Hub was launched as part of a USAID-funded project, supported by a group of private and civic actors. At a time when Belgrade's tech ecosystem was still emerging, ICT Hub offered something new: a space for entrepreneurs to work, connect, and grow.

In the early days, the team in ICT Hub focused on helping aspiring founders navigate the unfamiliar territory of product development, early growth, and market entry. The place became a hub in the truest sense of the word—a bustling coworking space, a venue for events, and a meeting spot for mentoring and meetups that helped shape the city's entrepreneurial rhythm.

However, the team behind ICT Hub understood one crucial fact from day one: donor support is a launchpad, not a foundation for their business. Grants are a good way to start and test something, but it's not a long-term strategy. Therefore, they continually sought different ways to become sustainable. To prove they are living up to their credo, they even refused another USAID grant in 2016, as it limited their decision-making and agility, constraining them to focus on project activities and monitoring rather than what the ecosystem really needed.

Building for sustainability

Within a few years after its foundation, ICT Hub began planting the seeds for long-term independence. Even if they were using some project grants to keep the lights on, they developed their revenue-generating services:

• A coworking space - to serve freelancers, startup teams, and small companies. To fully develop this branch of their services, the team had to relocate from their initial location in the Science and Technology Park Belgrade (settled in the forest outside the city center) to a more central location, offering better services and a more attractive setup. Such a move required additional investment but created numerous, clear benefits, such as a strong community of tenants and a central, startup-friendly event space in the heart of the city. Today ICT Hub runs two co-workings spaces in the Belgrade city center of a total of 600 square meter space.
• Consulting in corporate innovation - first introduced in Serbia, by looking up to proven concepts and companies from Western Europe. Early corporate innovation services included programs such as corporate hackathons, design sprints, and internal startup programs. All of these offerings aimed to integrate startup practices into corporations, ultimately bringing the corporate world and startup ecosystem closer together.
• ICT Hub Venture - launched in 2017, the VC fund was designed to invest in early-stage startups and contribute to the organization's financial sustainability through equity returns.

None of these initiatives occurred overnight, nor did they happen at the same time. It took time, trial, and error to develop this system before these services were shaped and formed to be lucrative.

Swiss EP experts also contributed to the organization’s growth. In total, over 10 years, ICT Hub has been supported by more than 50 different Swiss EP experts. Interestingly, the large majority of experts were in action in the first five years, leaving a lasting impact on the organization's development.

Sandra Nesic, who was a part of the ICT Hub team and still works with the organization as an external consultant, shared her experience in working with Swiss EP:

I appreciate the knowledge that Swiss EP experts from around the world brought to Serbia, to every organization and every startup they worked with. I also love how they focus on impactful areas, identifying the needs of startups and startup support organizations, and then target those areas effectively.

Turning services into value

In the case of ICT Hub, diversification proved crucial in weathering shifts—economic, political, and pandemic-related. When the coworking model was disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, ICT Hub leaned more heavily into its corporate innovation programs and digital delivery formats.

On the other hand, as the startup investment landscape became more competitive, the team doubled down on helping founders with early traction and product-market fit, where their expertise was most valuable.

A crucial learning for other startup actors in the ecosystem is that ICT Hub was never just an organization aiming at winning projects. Its founders and core team are business people who believed in the vision of creating an innovation hub with a long-term vision and strategy. That vision helped them focus on their value proposition, rather than on a specific group of users (startups, corporates, donors, or policymakers), and enabled them to serve as a connector between all of them.

Lessons from the journey, so far

What can other startup ecosystem builders and support organizations learn from ICT Hub's path to sustainability?

Here are a few takeaways:

1. Start with the goal of earning early. Building an organization with the goal of generating revenue in the early days will force you to create a product that the market will pay for, whether that's coworking, training, consultancy, or something else.
2. Diversify or die. No single revenue stream can carry an organization forever. ICT Hub offers a mix of space, consulting, investment, and programming services. They understood that innovation and the startup ecosystem are complex, and for a comprehensive approach, one has to be a jack of all trades.
3. Keep evolving. Sustainability doesn't mean staying the same; it means evolving. It means adapting continuously, without losing sight of your mission. Primarily, it means adapting to changes in the ecosystem, as the services provided in 2019 were inadequate for 2025.

A Sustainable Ecosystem Needs Sustainable Players

Why are we saying that ICT Hub has graduated from Swiss EP? Because they no longer need our support to learn how to be sustainable and provide their services. Yes, we still communicate with the ICT Hub team and occasionally provide support (if someone from their network can benefit from our help), but our support is not critical.

Swiss EP has worked with ICT Hub over the years as a collaborative partner and co-creator. We've shared tools, peers, and international expertise. However, their development story is entirely their own, and it demonstrates what's possible when you design with a readiness to adjust and pivot.

For other ecosystem actors wondering how to transition from donor reliance to long-term resilience, ICT Hub offers a rare and concrete example: sustainability is not a buzzword—it's a strategy, a structure, and a mindset.