The members of Bravva Angels, a community of investors supporting technology startups from Romania and Central and Eastern Europe, have invested in five companies over the past three months. The list includes Watergenics, Solmag, Rayscape, and EdNeos. The fifth company backed by Bravva Angels members is currently raising a round, but details remain confidential at this stage.
The companies have collectively secured more than EUR 220,000 from the over 50 active investors in the Bravva Angels community.
In recent months, Bravva has assessed companies in medtech, robotics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, fintech, e-commerce, and software solutions for managing EV charging stations, it said. Most of the startups are developing SaaS products and operate under B2B, B2B2C, or B2B2B business models.
Solmag gives energy suppliers, traders, and distribution system operators real-time visibility into solar power generation directly from inverters, enabling teams to forecast, balance, and respond with less uncertainty and lower risk. The startup, founded by Alex Nicoară and Vlad Ionescu, also offers its own hardware device, which connects and optimizes prosumers’ solar panels and batteries to maximize their energy revenues through a virtual power plant. With the help of the investment, the Solmag team has opened its first hardware manufacturing facility and plans to continue to attract new customers.
Watergenics is a Berlin-based startup founded by Romanian entrepreneur Liviu Mantescu. It develops smart sensors and software platforms for real-time water quality monitoring directly at factories and industrial plants. While traditional sensors require water samples to be sent to a laboratory, a process that can take between 12 and 24 hours, Watergenics’ sensor analyzes the chemical composition of water directly in the pipeline and delivers results in less than 10 minutes. Potential applications include mining and lithium extraction, the chemical and petrochemical industries, semiconductor manufacturing, wastewater treatment plants, and water desalination facilities.
EdNeos is an AI-powered platform that helps deskless workers develop soft and hard skills by providing continuous voice-based assistance as they carry out their daily tasks. EdNeos founder Veceslav Carbugan initially set out to build an educational assistant for students, designed to improve learning outcomes and retention. Over the years, he identified a strong business use case, with EdNeos able to be integrated directly into the workflows of frontline employees. Today, the platform is used by companies in both Romania and Luxembourg.
Rayscape is a European medtech company headquartered in Timișoara that develops artificial intelligence solutions for radiology. Its current portfolio includes software products for analyzing X-rays and chest CT scans. Rayscape’s technologies have been deployed in more than 20 countries and are used by public healthcare providers as well as private medical networks and centers across Europe and other international markets. The funding raised from private investors, alongside financing from investment funds and a grant secured by the Rayscape team, will help expand Rayscape TAP-CT, a product designed to cover the entire thorax-abdomen-pelvis (TAP) CT examination.
The risks associated with innovation remain high, but Romanian teams are becoming increasingly effective at defining the problems they solve and developing their business models.
“Bravva’s mission is to empower founders to grow their companies by providing not only funding but also expertise. The added value comes from the community, which works alongside founders wherever support is needed. Only by working together can we compete with technology companies in the EU and US. The risks associated with innovation remain high, but Romanian teams are becoming increasingly effective at defining the problems they solve and developing their business models, which investors expect to see validated at a relatively early stage,” Ilinca Păun, founder of Bravva Angels, explained.
The team of Bravva speaks with around 15 startups every month, on average. Of these, approximately three are invited to pitch their businesses to the angel investors. The selection criteria include the team’s readiness to scale and raise investment, the size of the market, and the founders’ entrepreneurial stamina.
Bravva Angels members are currently assessing 11 new startups for potential investment, following their pitches and in-depth sessions with the teams.
Although the community’s portfolio spans multiple sectors, the majority of the companies under consideration are developing SaaS products and operate under B2B, B2B2C, or B2B2B business models. They either target international customers directly or operate in segments of the Romanian market that are large enough to demonstrate traction before moving into their next stage of growth.
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