Kyriakos Eleftheriou: Cyprus has plenty of grant money but it comes with constant oversight and strict conditions

Kyriakos Eleftheriou, Founder & CEO, Terra in San Francisco, USA arrived in San Francisco with a singular goal: to build a global business. As the first Cypriot to graduate from the prestigious US technology startup programme Y Combinator, he has leaned into the stress and setbacks that define entrepreneurship.

His company, Terra, is an API unifying health and fitness data from apps and wearables. Read his interview with GOLD magazine below, as part of its Success Beyond Borders cover story.

Terra unifies siloed health and fitness data from various apps and wearable devices. What inspired you to launch such a startup?

During my military service in Cyprus’ Special Forces, the intensity was overwhelming – people kept leaving. I wanted to perform and stay on, so I started buying devices. I bought a Polar heart rate monitor and later a Nike pedometer and got hooked on tracking my progress and generally helping me navigate my health. Later, at Imperial College London, I studied engineering, management and business. I always wanted to build a big business and healthcare was an area that stood out. Health data, from MRIs to Strava logs and wearables were siloed, so I started thinking, “Why don’t we take this as an entry point to solve the silo data problem on the wearables and then over time, get into the hospitals and labs, making health information more accessible?”

Many founders struggle with mental health, from anxiety to burnout. Have you experienced this, and how do you manage your well-being?

Entrepreneurship is gruelling, as most startups fail, so you must be conscious of that risk. The key is doing something meaningful because it keeps you in the game. I don’t like what society says about avoiding stress for a “healthier” life. Instead, I double down on stress. I go to the gym, lift heavy or push myself on a run. The more you stress your body, the more resistant you become to cortisol. The human body thrives on hormesis – you break something down to make it stronger. It’s like lifting weights: you tear muscle fibres to rebuild and improve them. The brain works the same way. The more pain you endure, the more resilient you become.

You were named a Forbes “30 under 30” honouree in Technology and you were the first Cypriot to graduate from the prestigious Y Combinator technology startup programme. How have these milestones shaped your journey so far?

Being on the Forbes list was a milestone when I was at university. Today, these titles might help with hiring at the company but in the grand scheme of things, they don’t matter to me anymore. Y Combinator was much more impactful. When I started my first business in Cyprus, I realised there were very few places with the knowledge to build a billion-dollar business because there were so few successes. I ended up in Athens and London and saw exactly the same thing.

When I landed in San Francisco and discovered Y Combinator, I saw that no Greeks or Cypriots had gone through the programme, which was a pretty interesting challenge for me. As soon as I was accepted, I realised that this was the place to learn how to build a big business. It was truly formidable to be working alongside people who had built billion-dollar businesses and it showed me that it’s not just about luck. There are tactics and strategies you can follow, there is a way of speaking and communicating and so on. It really opened my eyes.

On the flip side, the entrepreneurial journey is as much about setbacks as it is about successes. What was your biggest setback and what lessons have you learned?

If you take massive risks, you’ll inevitably fail constantly. I fail 100 times a day in different aspects of the business! The key is to keep moving from failure to failure until something works. Early on, we made bad hires, so I learned how to recruit better. In my first fundraising attempt, I pitched to 150 investors across Europe and the US before securing funding. Failure refines your message. In the gym, you push yourself to failure, but you don’t see it as such. Instead, you see it as getting stronger, fitter and healthier. However, we avoid failure in life. I find the gym approach better. You should seek failure all the time because it’s the only way to refine the message and the only way to grow the business.

Health and fitness have been shifting towards integrated and personalised solutions for some time now. So, what do you see as the biggest disruptor shaping the sector?

At Terra, we are the infrastructure that every new company is building on top of to access health data. So, we see what works – and what dies – every six months. Two years ago, fitness apps used crypto to reward users. A year ago, there was a surge in employee wellness and mental health platforms. Now, AI startups dominate, and AI is orders of magnitude more impactful. The human body is fundamentally dynamic, with biomarkers varying between individuals. In the past, building personalised health software was incredibly complex. Now, AI makes it far easier. With AI agents analysing anything from heart rate data to your glucose levels, you could essentially have a personal doctor tracking your health over a decade, predicting risks and offering guidance. We’re entering a world where AI will allow us to have truly individualised goals, whether it’s getting more muscular, healthier or more productive at work. Many think AI is overhyped but I believe it’s massively underhyped. It’s changing healthcare end to end.

The startup scene in Cyprus has seen some evolution but it’s nowhere near reaching full momentum. From your experience in more mature ecosystems, what key changes will help drive real growth?

Cyprus takes a top-down approach to funding and company-building, with lots of talk about entrepreneurship but little substance. In Silicon Valley, it’s the opposite – fewer people talk, more people build. Young founders get opportunities with no strings attached. Cyprus has plenty of grant money but it comes with constant oversight and strict conditions. Startups don’t work that way. They need the freedom to pivot every month to find product-market fit. San Francisco thrives because successful entrepreneurs come back and create funds; they can see the real signal, invest early and only invest in substance. More importantly, they aren’t afraid of experimentation. We need more experimentation in Cyprus. Another difference is that in San Francisco, founders think from a place of abundance: if I have everything, what I can build for the next 20 years, how can I improve the world? That’s a very big mindset change. So, there is also a philosophical issue. What happened when Turkey occupied Cyprus in 1974 made us too short-sighted – and understandably so. If someone steals your home, then there is no reason to think long-term. But we need to start looking into the future more.

Finally, what advice can you give to young Cypriots looking to build their own startup?

No nation has a monopoly on smarts and competence. I’m convinced that anyone can build anything if they’re relentless, resourceful and willing to take risks. Think long-term. If you’re young, maximise risk. Youth brings naivety, peak brainpower and a fresh perspective. Plus, your risks are lower, since you have no family to support, and no major responsibilities – you can sleep in the street if it comes to it. Seek help and people will support you. Lastly, avoid easy money. Just do what’s good, do what’s going to benefit people.

• This cover story article was first published in the March issue of GOLD magazine. To view it click here