The Romanian automotive deep-tech startup OxidOS concluded its first seed round of 1,2 million euro, with EGV as lead investor

OxidOS concluded its first seed round investment of 1.2 million euros. The round was led by EGV and joined by renowned business angels. The DLA Piper team and Nistorescu Law Office provided legal assistance for the transaction. Early Game Ventures is the most active Venture Capital fund in Romania as of 2021, maintaining its position in the second quarter of the current year, as research shows.

The OxidOS team is working on an Operating System and DevTools for embedded software used in the automotive industry. Specifically, with the help of OxidOS, automotive component integrators and OEM software companies will be able to reduce the time needed for certification of automotive software by up to 50% and the development costs by 40%, while contributing to building safer cars. OxidOS thus takes part in the revolution that is just beginning in the automotive industry, where the current software development process is based on outdated technologies and development paradigms that are 50 years old.

The company was founded by a group of five exceptional Romanian specialists: Alexandru Radovici (CEO), Bogdan Genis (CTO), Vlad Rădulescu (certification), Ioana Culic (R&D) and Daniel Rosner (business development), outstanding both through their experience and the contribution they bring to the software and automotive industry.

Alexandru Radovici (CEO), Ph.D. – is one of the top 5 contributors to Tock. He has published the first book on Tock OS kernel & application development. He has 20 years of experience in software engineering with a focus on embedded systems and IoT. Alex is also teaching the Operating Systems and Compilers courses at the Polytechnic University in Bucharest.

Bogdan Genis (CTO), MSc – has more than 15 years experience in automotive development, designing, and managing projects (hardware and software) for companies such as Continental and HuF.

Vlad Rădulescu (Certification) has 8 years of experience in automotive development, managing specifications, and software development. Worked through several ASPICE certification processes and software homologation of different products, and masters all the steps in the automotive development process.

Ioana Culic (R&D), Ph.D. (c) – is a contributor to the Tock operating system and has experience with building secure connected systems. She is working on her Ph.D. thesis around secure technologies, with a focus on Tock. Together with Alex, Ioana published the first book on Tock OS kernel & application development.

Daniel Rosner (Business Development), Ph.D. – is highly experienced in setting up and managing sustainable and scalable enterprises, with a track record in research, development and innovation; major initiatives turned into success stories Innovation Labs, as well as one of the first modern engineering research laboratories in a public institution, with private funding and management, CISL41, Polytechnic University in Bucharest.

“We are in a moment when the entire automotive industry is going through a paradigm shift. We want not only to be part of this revolution, but to make a serious contribution to it. OxidOS will reduce the time needed to develop software for car components to half and will massively address the security problems encountered by car manufacturers”, says Alexandru Radovici, co-founder and CEO of OxidOS.

“We are excited about the OxidOS team, an extraordinary twinning of professionalism, energy and intelligence. EGV is investing, as usual, in startups that change paradigms, and OxidOS is the company that will bring change to the automotive industry. Through its investment thesis – Infrastructure for Innovation – EGV takes on the role of capitalyzing on such innovative, deep tech companies, with the potential to reshape entire industries and global markets”, says Dan Călugăreanu, partner in Early Game Ventures.

Currently, the automotive software market is growing at an annual average of 24%, as modern cars have more and more microcontrollers (up to 100 in each car) that require specialized software. The Operating System and the DevTools that the OxidOS team is offering will empower software developers and integrators to implement, verify and certify embedded software for Electronic Control Units faster and safer.

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Early Game Ventures (EGV) is a venture capital firm funded mainly through the Competitiveness Operational Program 2014-2020, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

The European Investment Fund (EIF) is part of the European Investment Bank Group and is the leading risk financier for Europe’s SMEs through venture capital, collateral, and microfinance instruments. In Romania, the EIF implements financial instruments co-financed through structural and investment funds, such as JEREMIE 2007-2013, SME Initiative, ROP, JOP, NRDP.

The Competitiveness Operational Program 2014-2020 (POC) makes investments to address the needs and challenges raised by the low levels of economic competitiveness, in particular with regard to (a) insufficient support for research, development, and innovation and (b) underdeveloped infrastructure for Information and Communication Technology. POC benefits from a € 1.33 billion allocation from the European Regional Development Fund.