Vitosha Venture Partners invested a total of €1 million in nine new companies, five of which are startups in a more advanced stage of development and t4 are part of the Vitosha ACCELERATE accelerator programme. Among the supported Sofia-based companies are the Nakantara platform for selling cars through auctions, which receives 100 thousand euros, the manufacturer of tin-lead and lead-free alloys SN Metals – with 200 thousand euros and the FinqUp fintech platform for individual investors supported with 50 thousand euros. Among the younger companies from Sofia that received funding are Diplom.id – a platform for electronic issuance and verification of educational diplomas and certificates, and the pet care platform PetStay.
Sofia-based EnduroSat raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Luxembourg-based investment firm Ceecat Capital. Existing investors such as German seed fund Freigeist Capital also participated in the round. The investment will enable EnduroSat to expand its operations and work on a wider range of satellite technologies. The company is now headquartered in Luxembourg and has core R&D operations in Sofia, Bulgaria. EnduroSat has new offices in Luxembourg, Berlin, Toulouse, Naples and Delaware, and has opened a new space centre in Sofia with 3,200 square metres of office space and 700 square metres of state-of-the-art space testing and component assembly laboratories. EnduroSat has seen 6 consecutive years of growth of over 200% year on year and now has a solid customer base in the US and EU. Since its launch in 2018, the company has supported over 200 customers and delivered over 2500 satellite modules that fly in orbit on satellites to customers around the world.
Another Sofia-based aerospace technology company, Dronamics, announced the successful completion of the first flight of its Black Swan cargo aircraft from Balchik Airport in Bulgaria. Dronamics is the world’s first drone cargo airline and has made it its mission to make cargo deliveries affordable and possible within a day. The cargo drone was remotely controlled from a Dronamics ground control station. The successful flight test validates the company’s licensed cargo drone technology for commercial flights in Europe, which will begin later this year and serve industries such as e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, spare parts and short shelf-life goods.
The Sofia-based gaming startup Augment, has announced a joint project with Riot Games, the world’s largest game publisher and creator of League of Legends. Augment’s data analytics platform will be used in the broadcast of Riot Games’ latest franchise, VALORANT. Since its inception in 2020, the eSports startup has attracted investment from funds Vitosha Venture Partners and BrighCap Ventures and participated in Bulgaria Innovation Hub’s accelerator program. Augment’s development provides VALORANT players with a feature that allows them to go deeper into the game’s tactics. The service is currently available for markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.