by Stylianos Lambrou is co-founder and CEO of Heart Group and The Doers Company, and the co-founder & Board Member of TechIsland.
In 2021, I came up with the name TechIsland as a country brand for Cyprus. The idea was simple: bring together two things that make this place special, the island lifestyle and a growing tech ecosystem. A place where you can build globally while enjoying life on an island.
I still believe the words we use shape what we aim for. So today I want to bring that same local perspective to another word, one I hear at almost every pitch, panel and dinner: unicorn.
A word we borrowed
The term unicorn was coined in 2013 by an American investor, Aileen Lee, to describe startups valued at one billion dollars or more. She chose a mythical animal because those companies were so rare.
I understand why the word travelled. It is catchy and it sets a high bar. But when we borrow the word, we also borrow the yardstick. Measured only against a billion dollars, almost everything we build in Cyprus looks small. I don’t think that is fair to our founders, and I don’t think it helps them.
We already have our own animal
Unicorns are mythical. Agrinos are real.
Growing up in Cyprus, the agrino was all around us, even if we rarely stopped to notice. It was on the coins in our pockets, the 1, 2 and 5 cent pieces. It was on the tail of Cyprus Airways, the national carrier so many of us flew with. It is found only in Cyprus, and its name comes from the Greek for wild: αγρινό, the wild one.
The more I read about it, the more it sounded like a founder’s story.
- It almost disappeared. By the 1930s only a few dozen were left. In 1939 the island decided to protect them.
- It came back. Today there are more than 3,000.
- It is built for the climb. It lives on steep, rocky slopes, up to around 1,300 metres in summer.
- It is hard to spot. Like a good company, it doesn’t make noise.
That is the animal I want our companies to be measured against.
You can check out my Linkedin post
What I mean by an agrino
In Cyprus, I believe we should be building agrinos: companies born here, built here, and ambitious enough to make it big internationally.
For a country our size, a company reaching a €100 million valuation (not even one billion) can have an enormous impact. It can create quality jobs, develop local talent, attract investment and produce founders who go on to build the next generation of businesses.
That last part is what excites me most. Success does not stay inside one company. The people who built it go on to mentor, invest and start their own. One agrino can train the people who start the next five.
The agrino itself shows what makes this possible. A few dozen became more than 3,000 because the island gave them the right conditions early. Companies are no different. The right ecosystem grows them. Support them early and they multiply.
Aim higher, but count the climb
We should recognise that achievement while continuing to aim higher. A billion-euro company remains an ambition worth pursuing, and I hope to see several come out of Cyprus. But the journey matters too, and so does what a company creates around it.
Every company is a steep climb. I want us to celebrate the ones that make it up the mountain, not only the ones that reach the summit.
Imagine one agrino. Then two. Then five. Think about what that could mean for Cyprus.
Why Reflect’s symbol is now an agrino
This is also why we redesigned the logo of Reflect, the flagship tech event of Cyprus. Its new symbol is an agrino.
For me, Reflect has always been about the people building from here and the people who come to join them. Its job is to help the next agrinos meet, raise and hire. It felt right that it should carry an animal from here.
I believe the next symbol of Cyprus could be an agrino company, built by a founder from here. I want to help raise a few. See you in Limassol in May 2027.
What are your thoughts? I would love to hear what you think we should call our breakout companies.
