Ana Barjasic

Named among Europe’s top 100 most influential women in VC, connected 1,000+ entrepreneurs with global investors. Ana Barjasic is an entrepreneur, angel investor, policy adviser and ecosystem builder, with over a decade of experience in international startup ecosystems. In 2024, Ana was listed one of Europe's top 100 influential women in startup and VC space in Europe. Combining her hands-on experience and knowledge of startup and innovation ecosystems and investment communities across EMEA region, Ana founded Connectology, a capacity-building and early-stage investment firm. Ana is also an Obama Leader Europe, Executive Committee Member of Global Entrepreneurship Network (Europe) and a Board Member of the European Innovation Council, largest innovation fund for deep tech in Europe with investment capacity of 10 billion euros. Ana is the Chair of the Widening Countries/Opening for Excellence Working Group of the EIC Board, recommending concrete actions across EU to increase participation and success rates of entrepreneurs from widening countries of Horizon Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia). Besides her entrepreneurship and investment experience, Ana is also a social scientist educated at the University of Zagreb, University of Vienna and London School of Economics and Political Science.