€270k · Pre-Seed · HRtech · Sofia, Bulgaria
Sofia-based Estel Technologies has raised €270,000 in a pre-seed round led by Vitosha Ventures, with participation from Austrian angel investor Kerem Basak, founder and CEO of FB Consulting. According to Tech.eu, the company will use the capital to strengthen its demand-verification, lead-scoring and buyer-matching technology, grow across European markets and work towards a planned US expansion in 2027.
Turning hiring signals into sales opportunities
Technology staffing firms do not only recruit candidates; they also have to identify employers with live demand and reach the right buyer before that demand changes. Estel is building an AI-native workspace for that sales process. Its product combines market intelligence, company research, contact data and personalised outreach in one interface. The company says its Demand Confidence Score scans thousands of opportunities against multiple signals, ranks them for each staffing team and filters for active demand before matching users with relevant decision-makers.
The commercial distinction is important. A database can provide more job listings or contacts, but staffing sales teams still lose time when listings are duplicated, already filled or poorly matched to the skills they represent. Estel told Economy.bg that recruiters often juggle six or more disconnected tools and that as much as 40% of the vacancies they pursue may be stale, duplicated or closed. Those are company estimates, but they describe the workflow the product is trying to compress: verify demand, rank the opportunity, identify the buyer and prepare an approach without switching between separate systems.
Early customers become part of the proof
At the time of the announcement, Estel reported three enterprise customers and €24,000 in annual recurring revenue, with active demand signals across the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Poland. Its product site names staffing businesses including Artech, FB Consulting, apsa Personnel and Maxam Digital in customer testimonials. Basak's participation also carries a useful signal: Economy.bg reported that FB Consulting used the product before he invested.
The founders bring experience from the problem they are addressing. Economy.bg reported that CEO Bogdan Stavrev previously led digital products at a large staffing organisation, CPO Ivo Michorov led Google's extended-workforce programme, and CTO Yusuf Berki has built AI and machine-learning systems across healthcare, finance and HR technology. Vitosha Ventures' investment thesis, as quoted in the same report, rests on that operating familiarity.
For Estel, the next test is less about producing more leads than proving that its rankings consistently create qualified conversations and placements. The pre-seed capital gives the team room to improve the underlying signals and expand distribution, but customer retention and conversion from recommendation to revenue will show whether the workflow becomes essential rather than another layer in the staffing software stack.
Sources checked:
Tech.eu announcement · Tech.eu Funding Explorer · Estel product site · Estel contact page · Economy.bg reporting
