Startup of the Day: Bulgarian-founded company Eilla AI

Eilla AI was co-founded by Nikola Lazarov, Petar Petrov, and Nikolay Babulkov. The company provides an AI platform powering the M&A, VC, and PE deal workflow. It helps to automate mundane tasks and support complex decision-making through the aggregation and analysis of large amounts of information. Currently, Elilla AI operates in London and plans to increase its team to a total of 14 people by mid 2024. In November this year, it secured $1.5 million led by Eleven Ventures.

In the Startup of the Day column, David Cermak, the founding team of Eilla AI share more details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

For M&A advisors and investors, one of the biggest time constraints is the volume of mundane tasks associated with the deal workflow. Eilla AI’s technology automates these processes by mirroring industry professionals using generative AI.

The platform also unlocks new insights and supports complex decision-making through aggregation and analysis of large amounts of information from various sources in significantly less time than is currently possible.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

Eilla’s inception was a product of an insatiable curiosity and a clear vision of what AI could bring to the financial world. While studying at the University of Cambridge with a Masters in AI, Nikola Lazarov worked on ChatGPT’s predecessor and Generative AI for his thesis. From there, he transferred his knowledge to London-based Hedge Fund, where he developed trading strategies using Generative AI. And while the world was still wrapping its head around the potential of models like ChatGPT, he recognized a big opportunity.

Determined to bring his vision to life, he reached out to his lifelong friends from the Bulgarian city of Veliko Tarnovo. Together with Petar Petrov and Nikolay Babulkov, they set out to harness the power of AI in a way that could mirror the complex tasks performed by financial professionals, but with unmatched speed and efficiency. And as they say, the rest is history.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

It took us one month. That’s what most investors love about us — we experiment a lot and bring ideas to life much quicker than other startups.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

The AI Platform for M&A, VC and PE was launched early 2023, but Eilla’s first prototype was launched in June, 2022.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Monthly subscription based on credits and user seats.

What are your target markets and consumers?

M&A banks, VC and PE funds mainly in the US and UK.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

More than 200 M&A banks, PE and VC funds have requested an early access to our platform two weeks after we announced our fundraising round.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

The team consists of 5 people, but we already started the hiring process, so we are looking to grow the team to a total of 14 people by mid 2022. Looking for Full-stack developers, AI engineers, UI/ UX designer, Infrastructure Engineer, Marketing Manager.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

Recently, we secured $1.5 million led by Eleven Ventures and joined by Fuel Ventures. The fresh funding will help us to further expand the team and position on markets.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

Our main priority is continue building a great product that VCs, PEs and M&A banks NEED. Other than that, our focus is expanding the team and filling our insider program, which we recently launched. It allows us to work closely with funds and banks to help us improve our product and tailor the platform to their needs. The program is already half-filled and our goal is to fill the remaining spots in the next few weeks.