Six Bulgarian Startups Secure EBRD Support for Growth and Expansion
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has introduced its Star Venture programme in Bulgaria, aiming to provide strategic support to high-potential startups. After a competitive selection process, 15 startups presented their business concepts at the Planet Schwarz Tech Theatre in Sofia, with six emerging as the final winners.
The selected startups – THE NOLD, True Insights, Predicto, Kikimora.io, Ethermind, and PharmaWorks – will each receive business advisory services valued at €40,000. Additionally, they will gain access to a 24-month intensive programme focused on accelerating their growth and expanding their market reach. The programme offers strategic workshops conducted by Cambridge University, mentorship from a network of over 1,500 expert mentors via the Dosen platform, as well as cloud credits and e-learning resources from platforms like Coursera, Amazon, and Microsoft.
The judging panel, which included prominent figures such as Manuela Naessl, EBRD's Head of Bulgaria, Dobromir Ivanov of BESCO, Momchil Vassilev of Endeavor Bulgaria, Valeri Petrov of Eleven, and Daniel Shopov of Barin Sports, evaluated the pitches and selected the winners based on innovation and potential for growth. The chosen startups operate in diverse sectors, including circular fashion, artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance, cybersecurity, AI-based education, and healthcare digitalisation.
A notable highlight of the event was a fireside chat titled 'Scaling Startups – Challenges and Opportunities,' which offered attendees valuable insights into overcoming common obstacles in scaling their businesses. The session fostered constructive dialogue among entrepreneurs, investors, and industry experts.
The Star Venture programme, now active in 26 countries, has already provided support to over 550 startups, aiming to strengthen local entrepreneurial ecosystems through targeted mentorship, strategic planning assistance, and access to global markets. The programme is funded by the EBRD's Small Business Impact Fund, which receives backing from international donors, including Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the TaiwanBusiness-EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund, and the United States.
Manuela Naessl expressed optimism about the programme's impact, emphasising its success in other countries and the potential for Bulgarian startups to achieve substantial growth. Meanwhile, Calvin Ho from Taipei China's Representative Office in Greece highlighted Taiwan's contribution to the initiative, noting the synergies between Taiwanese technological expertise and Bulgaria's emerging startup scene.
Source: EBRD press release
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Novaturas secured EUR 9M in surety insurance from the international Insurance company Euroins AD
Novaturas Group signed the Suretyship of travel organizer's contractual obligations insurance agreement with Insurance company Euroins AD, a company that is part of Euroins Insurance Group AD – one of the largest independent insurance groups in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Under the agreement, the insurer will provide Novaturas with a EUR 9 million in surety insurance limit, ensuring the fulfillment of the company's obligations to travelers. The company also announced an extension of its credit line with Luminor Bank. 'This agreement with Euroins is, above all, a clear and reliable sign of Novaturas credibility for our clients, partners, and shareholders. At the same time, it reflects our strategic goal to further strengthen the company's market position. As always, travelers can confidently plan their future trips with our company, knowing that their payments and interests are financially protected. Moreover, the partnership with a well-established international insurance group opens up additional opportunities to develop our operations and customer-focused solutions,' says Kristijonas Kaikaris, CEO of Novaturas. Tourism regulations require all tour operators to ensure the fulfillment of their obligations through insurance or a bank guarantee. This way, the tour operator insures its responsibility to provide the booked services to travelers or, if the services cannot be delivered, to refund the amount paid. If the tour operator is unable to meet its obligations, the insurer is committed to compensating the costs incurred by travelers. According to the company, the EUR 9M in surety insurance limit provided by Insurance company Euroins AD meets the current needs of Novaturas. The company also does not rule out the possibility of expanding the partnership with Euroins in the future, potentially offering additional competitive insurance products to travelers. Insurance company Euroins AD ( is among the leading companies in the sector in Bulgaria according to data from the Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission. The company also operates in Greece (through a branch), Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany and Romania, offering the full range of insurance products. It is a leader in travel insurance in the Bulgarian market. Insurance company Euroins AD is part of Euroins Insurance Group AD which is one of the largest insurance groups operating in 11 countries across Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Euroins Insurance Group AD is owned by Eurohold Bulgaria AD, a leading energy and financial group in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is a minority shareholder owning 8% of the capital. Novaturas has also extended its existing credit line with Luminor Bank. The repayment of the €3 million loan has been extended until the end of this year. Credit lines are a common financial tool for travel companies, helping to balance cash flow fluctuations driven by the industry's seasonal nature. According to Novaturas CEO Kristijonas Kaikaris, the guarantee from Euroins and the extension of the credit line agreement with Luminor are important steps that have further strengthened the company's financial Novaturas Group is a tour operator offering the widest range of travel destinations from the Baltic States. It has been operating in the region for 25 years. The company offers summer and winter recreational, sightseeing, exotic, skiing, workation and group trips to many destinations worldwide. According to unaudited data, in 2024, Novaturas Group recorded revenues of EUR 201 mln. and served 239 thsnd. passengers in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. For more information:Darius UndzėnasCFO+370 678 05749
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Intel and SoftBank collaborate on power-efficient HBM substitute for AI data centers, says report
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. American chip giant Intel has partnered with Japanese tech and investment powerhouse SoftBank to build a stacked DRAM substitute for HBM. According to Nikkei Asia, the two industry behemoths set up Saimemory to build a prototype based on Intel technology and patents from Japanese academia, including the University of Tokyo. The company is targeting a completed prototype and mass production viability assessment by 2027, with an end goal of commercialization before the end of the decade. Most AI processors use HBM or high-bandwidth memory chips, which are perfect for temporarily storing the massive amount of data that AI GPUs process. However, these ICs are complex to manufacture and are relatively expensive. Aside from that, they get hot pretty quickly and require relatively more power. The partnership aims to solve this by stacking DRAM chips and then figuring out a way to wire them more efficiently. By doing so, the stacked DRAM chip's power consumption is halved versus a similar HBM chip. If successful, SoftBank says that it wants to have priority for the supply of these chips. At the moment, only three companies produce the latest HBM chips: Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron. The insatiable demand for AI chips means that HBM supply can be hard to get by, so Saimemory aims to corner the market with its substitute, at least for Japanese data centers. This will also be the first time that Japan aims to become a major memory chip supplier in over 20 years. Japanese firms used to dominate the market in the 1980s, when they manufactured about 70% of the global supply. However, the rise of South Korean and Taiwanese competitors has pushed many of its memory chip manufacturers out of the market. This won't be the first time that a semiconductor company is experimenting with 3D stacked DRAM. Samsung has already announced plans for 3D and stacked DRAM as early as last year, while another company, NEO Semiconductor, is also working on 3D X-DRAM. However, these are focused on enlarging the capacity of each chip, with memory modules targeted to have 512GB capacity. On the other hand, Saimemory is aiming for reduced power consumption — something that data centers sorely need, especially as AI power consumption is increasing annually. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Tom's Guide
5 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
Nvidia's rumored gaming laptop APU could match RTX 4070 performance — here's what we know
Nvidia and MediaTek have been rumored to be developing a new APU, and now it looks to shake up the gaming laptop market thanks to a recent report teasing its performance. According to Taiwanese outlet UDN, Nvidia and MediaTek's joint development of its rumored APU (integrating CPU and GPU chips) for gaming laptops will deliver the same performance of an RTX 4070-equipped laptop, but with far better energy efficiency. The rumor suggests the Nvidia APU will only use 65W power to match the performance of a 120W RTX 4070 gaming laptop, with the Arm-based chip tipped to incorporate a Blackwell-based GPU — what we've seen in the latest RTX 50-series graphics cards. There's no word on what GPU it will be based on, with previous claims indicating it would use a smaller GB10 Blackwell chip for laptops. However, there's reason to believe it could use a GB206 model, similar to the RTX 5060 Ti or RTX 5060. As per the report, Dell's gaming brand Alienware will be among the first to launch new gaming laptops featuring the APU. That means we could see fresh Alienware notebooks that are slimmer and offer better battery life, if rumors about Nvidia and MediaTek's chip are accurate. The new APU is expected to launch in late 2025 or early 2026, which suggests it could be announced during CES 2026. Originally, the chip was tipped for a reveal during Computex 2025, but now it appears we'll get a closer look further down the line. Moreover, another rumor from Moore's Law is Dead (via Notebookcheck) revealed Nvidia's APU for gaming laptops, with this leak suggesting the chip would offer a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 80W to 120W. However, it also points to a late 2025/early 2026 release. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Nvidia and MediaTek's Arm-based chip already looks set to bolster ultraportable gaming laptops (and possibly PC gaming handhelds) with better power efficiency, which hopefully translates to greater battery life in gaming notebooks. We've seen Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Series offers major battery and performance boosts, and even how a Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptop can play games — including GTA V. With Nvidia's own chip sporting its GPU tech, however, gaming on APUs could see major performance gains. It already looks to have some competition, with AMD Strix Halo APU delivering close to RTX 4060 desktop GPU power in benchmarks and Qualcomm expected to deliver its next-gen Snapdragon X2 Series chips later this year. For now, we'll have to wait and see how Nvidia's chip measures up if it ends up launching later this year. In the meantime, check out what the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme delivers in our hands-on with the MSI Claw A8.
