In 2024, Rubik Garage Cohort 7 brought together 13 startups from Romania, Italy, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Chosen from over 100 applicants, these teams joined the accelerator with unique ideas, passion, and a drive to innovate. Over the past few months, they’ve grown, learned, and collaborated, paving the way for exciting opportunities ahead.
Rubik Garage isn’t just a program — it’s a launchpad for startups ready to scale to other markets and make an impact. This year’s journey started with an immersive Founders Bootcamp and included over 23 workshops and Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions throughout the edition. Beyond the workshops, founders connected with mentors and experts in 200+ one-on-one and group meetings, including 75 with investors. These sessions provided valuable insights and opened doors to potential investments.
A key part of the program was the support from 60+ experienced mentors, including entrepreneurs, investors, and industry experts. They offered personalized advice to help the startups fine-tune their strategies and overcome challenges.
Discover the 7th Cohort
Together with our strategic partners, we’ve selected 13 startups from 4 countries: Romania, Italy, Bulgaria, and Hungary, for this round of the Rubik Garage acceleration program. These teams have collectively:
- Bootstrapped: €715,000
- Raised investment: €2.7 million
- Revenue (until now): €1.3 million
- Jobs created: 50+
- Total Users & Clients: 90,000
Apollo Technologies (Romania) – Empowers healthcare professionals with advanced AI-driven software for instant, reliable access to certified medical data.
Brainactive (Romania) – An AI-driven platform that empowers companies to directly interview their current and potential customers to get vital insights on their products and services.
CraftGenie AI (Bulgaria) – Helps organizations without IT departments and users without IT skills to digitalize their data and processes via GenAI.
Fairytales (Bulgaria) – A mobile app that offers audio stories for children, narrated in the voices of their parents through a voice cloning process.
Forensics Lab (Romania) – An advanced intelligence and investigation system empowering brands and BP companies to swiftly identify, investigate, and eliminate infringers.
FreedHome (Italy) – Simplifies and streamlines property rental for landlords by mitigating high payment risks, optimizing rental income, and providing comprehensive, end-to-end real estate services.
GapMatch (Romania) – Revolutionizes talent management with a dynamic skill-based platform for sourcing, resource redeployment, learning, and career pathing.
Ruuts.travel (Romania) – One-stop hub for sustainable slow travel, offering responsible transportation, alternative accommodations like camper-vans, camping, glamping, and immersive local experiences.
SiWeGO – Smart Eco Transport (Italy) – Revolutionizes logistics by connecting individuals, SMEs, and transporters through a sharing-economy platform that optimizes vehicle space, reduces empty trips, and promotes eco-friendly transportation.
STEMIX.TECH (Romania) – Builds hardware devices that can collect real-world data from machines and sensors, that it sends to our software solution, where data is interpreted by custom AI agents that can output actions and control physical devices.
SQBRobotics (Romania) – Transforms retail with fully autonomous, AI-powered stores that operate 24/7, offering cost-effective solutions for businesses with zero staffing needs.
Waitless (Hungary) – Empowers restaurants to overcome workforce challenges without high initial costs by enabling customers to order and pay instantly on their own devices, with no app download or onboarding required.
WeReload (Romania) – Offers eSIM data plans for over 200 countries and is launching mobile top-up services for 150+ countries, aiming to revolutionize travel and telecom solutions.
Starting the Program with a Founders Bootcamp
Rubik Garage 7 started in September 2024 with a three-day Founders Bootcamp at our hub in Piatra Neamț.
The founders connected with the Rubik Hub team while diving into workshops that covered crucial startup topics. One highlight was an Ask Me Anything session on securing venture capital, where mentors like Mircea Ghiță (Metis Ventures), Răzvan Șuta (Startup Wise Guys), Alina Georgescu (Catalyst Romania), and Alexandru Chifu (Fortech Investments) shared their insights.
Andrei Văcuț from UiPath also led a session on sales strategies and growth, drawing inspiration from UiPath’s success. Other workshops included Value Proposition & Ideal Client Profile by Tudor Goicea (Aqurate) and Pricing Strategy & Business Modelling by Emanuel Martonca (Soft Fight).
The bootcamp also featured four working groups focusing on marketing, investments, product development, and sales.
Over Two and a Half Months of Acceleration
The startups had a great journey filled with hands-on workshops led by our mentors. They took part in group and one-on-one sessions, connected with investors, and received coaching to improve their strategies.
During the two and a half months, the startups had the following sessions:
- Value Prop & Ideal Client Profile – Tudor Goicea (Co-founder Aqurate)
- Pricing Strategy & Business Modelling – Emanuel Martonca (Price Strategist, Founder Soft Fight)
- AMA on Sales – Andrei Văcuț (EMEA Sales Engineerin Chief of Staff UiPath)
- AMA on Raising Investment – Mircea Ghiță, Selena Stan, Alina Georgescu, Alexandru Chifu, Răzvan Șuta
- Customer Understanding – Mircea Serediuc (Startup Consultant)
- Sales & Growth – Gabriel Pana (CEO at Traction Keys, Co-Founder at WhitePipe)
- Standup with the Founders – All Cohort
- How to Prepare Your Pitch Deck – Nino Subotic (Accelerator Co-lead Fast Track Malmo)
- Investment Masterclass (Investor conversation, trust among investors, metrics) – Yael Tamar (CEO & Co-founder Distributed Investment Banking)
- AMA 1: How to Scale Your Startup – Sebastian Gabor (Co-founder & CEO Digitail) & Bogdan Nicoara (Founder & CEO Bright Spaces)
- How to Evaluate Your Scaling Potential – Dragos Toma (Founder & CEO Quality Assurance Accelerator)
- Sales Strategies Insights – Gabriel Pana (CEO at Traction Keys, Co-Founder at WhitePipe)
- How to Handle Media and Leverage Its Power – Vlad Andriescu (Editor-in-chief start-up.ro)
- Standup with the Founders – All Cohort
- Marketing & Increasing Valuation – Loredana Niculae (CEO NNC Services)
- AMA 2: Metrics in Early-Stage – Mihai Cepoi (Founder & CEO Jobful), Stefan Iarca (Co-founder & CEO Rayscape) & Claudiu Petria (Co-founder & CEO Questo)
- How to Get to Product-Market Fit – Eoin (Owen) McGuinness (Head of Africa, CEE, & Middle East HubSpot for Startups)
- Early-Stage Strategy – Bogdan Pasca (Investment Principal Early Game Ventures)
- Let’s Discuss B2B Sales – Cristian Popescu (Country Lead, Amazon Web)
- Legal Basics for Startups – Lexters
- Standup: Demo Day Pitch Prep – All Cohort and RG Team
- Due Diligence Fundamentals: How Investors Evaluate Early-Stage Companies – Gautam Kumar (Investment Partner Partner Track)
- How to Pitch 1 – Emil Chichioi (Co-founder & CEO Bloomcoding)
Demo Day at UiPath Bucharest
The Demo Day at UiPath Bucharest wasn’t just about pitching—it was a full day of learning, connecting, and celebrating the startup journey. Alongside the 12 startups that showcased their innovative ideas, we hosted an incredible panel discussion featuring 2 unicorn leaders, 2 venture capitalists, a startup founder, and a journalist. Together, they explored how startups, corporations, and investors can join forces to drive success. Special thanks to our inspiring guests: Andrei Văcuţ, PMP, Bogdan Axinia, Valentin Filip, Mark Palfalvi, Ciprian Cazacu, and Oana Coșman.
Adding to the excitement was our jury, who evaluated the pitches and shared valuable feedback: Mark Palfalvi (PortfoLion Capital Partners), Alina Georgescu (Catalyst Romania), Robert Herscovici (GapMinder VC), Ana Ciobanu (Orange Fab), and Bogdan Pasca (Early Game Ventures).
Awarded Startups
Cohort Award – Fairytales, a mobile app that offers audio stories for children, narrated in their parents’ voices through a voice cloning process.
Best Pitch – SiWeGO, revolutionizes logistics by connecting individuals, SMEs, and transporters through a sharing-economy platform that optimizes vehicle space, reduces empty trips, and promotes eco-friendly transportation.
Best Startup– Apollo AI Technologies, empowers healthcare professionals with advanced AI-driven software for instant, reliable access to certified medical data.
Ready to Raise (Follow-on Program) – Apollo AI Technologies, Ruuts.travel, WeReload
Rubik Garage is a free-equity and fee-free accelerator, powered by Rubik Hub / North-East Regional Development Agency. So far, the Rubik Garage team directly supported 300+ startups & 2000+ founders, with the help of 200+ mentors.
We are proud to share that the seventh edition of Rubik Garage had Orange Romania as a strategic partner. A big thank you to them for being an essential part of this journey!
