More and more often, founders are looking for opportunities outside traditional hubs to build technical capabilities more effectively.
And for a growing number of them, Moldova has become part of that equation, according to Marina Bzovîi, administrator of the virtual Moldova Innovation Technology Park (Moldova IT-park, MITP), in an article published in the European Business Review.
So where can a British tech founder scale up without wasting capital, time, and talent?
The Old Model Has Hit a Wall
Amid rising costs in the UK, reduced access to skilled talent, and the need for stricter financial discipline, many realize that the old model has hit a wall.
For Darren Wooding, founder of the payment company Key IVR, this shift in thinking began with a staffing challenge.
As the company scaled up in the UK, Europe, and the US, building a team of engineers to support that growth took longer than expected. It wasn’t a lack of ambition; the problem was the difficulties with local hiring, which were slowing everything else down.
The search for technical specialists led Darren to a structural solution: Moldova.
Cutting Through the Noise
Ultimately, Darren’s attention was drawn to how Moldova had effectively removed barriers to international expansion. For a founder already navigating the administrative complexities of multiple jurisdictions, the appeal of the Moldovan Innovation Technology Park (MITP) lay in its radical simplicity: a flat 7% tax on revenue.
Thanks to the MITP’s structure, Key IVR was able to bypass the usual maze of corporate taxes, payroll complexities, and social security obligations. It is a flat tax on revenue that replaces everything else.
For the founder, this isn’t just a cost savings; it’s the end of uncertainty. Since this 7% rate is enshrined in law and guaranteed through 2035, Darren was finally able to stop reacting to tax uncertainty and start planning for hiring with complete confidence.
This allowed him to reinvest funds directly into his product, rather than into administrative complexities.
Moldova has a ready workforce
This shift is occurring alongside a clear change in the labor market. We often hear about the “brain drain” in the UK, and recent studies show that 72% of young professionals are considering moving abroad for a better quality of life.
The reality is that the workforce already thinks globally. Founders who insist on hiring only within a 30-mile radius of their headquarters are fighting a losing battle.
By establishing a technical center in Moldova, founders gain access to a pool of highly skilled engineers eager for international projects, yet free from the hiring challenges often encountered in oversaturated tech hubs.
By using the MITP virtual model, companies can build such teams without having to rent physical office space or deal with local bureaucracy, keeping management and business strategy in the UK while developing technical capabilities in other regions.
A Small Market with Huge Significance
Although Moldova is a small market, over the past decade it has built a truly sophisticated tech ecosystem. The caliber of work being done here often surprises outside observers—from Argus AI, which develops cutting-edge virtual surgery tools, to Crunchyroll, which delivers anime content to millions of users worldwide from its Moldovan base. These aren’t just branches; they are the technical hubs of global brands.
From the UK’s perspective, the number of British companies operating under the MITP has more than doubled since 2018. This reflects a gradual rethinking of the structure of British tech companies. British firms are restructuring their operations, keeping management and customers closer to home while building up their technical capabilities where friction is minimal.
A Structural Shift, Not a Short-Term Trend
What founders like Darren Wooding are doing reflects a broader evolution in how tech companies are built. For decades, ecosystems were defined by geography—companies were established where talent and capital were physically concentrated.
Key IVR demonstrates that this model is changing. Founders are becoming much more mindful of how they structure their businesses, separating commercial presence from technical capabilities. The main question is the same for everyone: how do you build a company that can grow without being limited to a single location? For a growing number of British founders, part of the answer now includes Moldova.
Not Just the UK
In 2025, the park was home to 2,725 resident companies, many of which are focused on the international market. Of these, 343 represented foreign capital from 44 countries, with the majority coming from Romania and Ukraine.
The combined revenue of MITP resident companies in 2025 exceeded the $1 billion mark, representing a 24.3% increase compared to 2024 and approximately 10 times higher than in 2018, when the park was established.
Residents and potential investors have a question: Will the preferential tax regime in the park remain in place if Moldova joins the EU?
The Moldovan authorities have not taken a firm stance on this issue. “The Moldovan authorities are considering phasing out tax incentives for the IT sector in the coming years,” said Minister of Economic Development and Digitalization Eugen Osmocescu on the program Punctul pe Azi on TVR Moldova in December 2025.
According to him, the government is already discussing an “exit strategy” to bring tax legislation in line with EU standards.
However, the next day he posted a video on social media in which he clarified that the current preferential tax regime for residents of Moldova IT Park is guaranteed by the state and will remain unchanged until the end of 2035.
