August 22 (SeeNews) - Icanpreneur, a Bulgarian digital accelerator platform seeking to facilitate investment opportunities for technology entrepreneurs, said it is primarily looking at Balkan countries as a stomping ground in the near term, after raising 200,000 euro in an angel round.
"The initial market that we are after are the countries in Southeast Europe (SEE). We see that region as a great first step for us as it is both emerging and fast growing," founder and CEO Vesko Kolev told SeeNews in an emailed statement on Monday.
Icanpreneur achieved a post-money valuation of 2.5 million euro ($2.5 million) last month, it said in a statement at the time.
The Sofia-based business accelerator was set up in late 2021 by Kolev who previously worked for Bulgarian software developer Telerik, which was bought by US Progress in 2014.
Icanpreneur is developing a cloud-based platform that can help systematically develop aspiring technology entrepreneurs' business ideas through sourcing investments to product or market fit by providing a digital roadmap to establishing an independent startup.
"Since we first announced Icanpreneur a month ago we have been able to make strong progress. We are working at full steam on building the initial version of our guided entrepreneurial journey which is at the heart of the Icanpreneur platform. At the same time, we are seeing strong interest from aspiring and early tech entrepreneurs in our insiders programme. For the next 12 months our goal will be building a solid foundation that will successfully onboard our first paying customers," Kolev also said.
The funding round, which is the company's first outside funding, saw participation from fellow Bulgarian IT entrepreneurs and angel investors Svetozar Georgiev, co-founder of Telerik, Telerik Academy & Campus X, SMSBump co-founders Mihail Stoychev and Georgi Petrov, VertoDigital founder Zoran Arsovski, Sentur co-founder Faris Sweis, Georgi Atanasov, hHead of AR/VR at Progress, and Coursera senior product manager Emil Tabakov.
Icanpreneur's insiders programme, launched last month after the fundraising, grants exclusive access to a hundred early adopters.
The business accelerator plans to channel the fresh funds into its go-to-market (GTM) strategy and efforts over the next six to twelve months.
($ = 1.00016 euro)