ZF IT Generation. Start-up Update. Behind the scenes of the BCR Seed Starter – FieldOS transaction: Discussions began in the spring, and the documents were signed in the fall, after the completion of the fiscal, legal and cybersecurity audit. There was good chemistry with the team from the first meeting

♦ Ion Gavrilescu, co-founder, FieldOS: The introduction that BCR gives us in front of big customers matters a lot, we come with a super vote of confidence, especially when everyone is trying to sell and there is a «flood» of e-mails . Discussions between BCR Seed Starter, the first investment vehicle of a bank on the local market, and the start-up FieldOS, which has developed a platform for the management of employees working in the field and their resources, started in March and completed in October/November with the completion of the audits carried out for the investment vehicle by external consultants. «We came across FieldOS quite early, sometime around March. FieldOS was one of the start-ups that participated in the InnovX accelerator – which was supported by BCR, and somehow it was on our short list of start-ups. I could say that there was a good chemistry with the team from the first meeting», said Adrian Roşoagă, chief investment officer of BCR Seed Starter during the ZF IT Generation show. «We liked the product, it's a product quite easy for customers to understand, it can be promoted quite easily and it also serves a real and very big need. The need for digitization in this sector of field activities is very high globally. And I also noticed that there are many global investors who have invested in this vertical. In the United States, tens of millions of dollars have been raised by start-ups active in this area. We met in the spring, we started due diligence somewhere around June-July. Already in the summer we had decided to go ahead with FieldOS, and after that they had discussions with other funds in the market and with other investors. We resumed the discussions somewhere around the end of September». The completion of the transaction of 500,000 euros was signed after the external audits on several levels were completed, Roşoagă added. «We closed the transaction in October/November. We completed the legal, fiscal and cybersecurity due diligence with external consultants, negotiated the transaction documentation and closed relatively quickly. The transaction took longer than we expected because it was a period in which things were somewhat expectant. We realized that the transactions take longer than we initially thought, maybe this also comes from the difficulty of the financing market. Many things happen that put the discussions on hold. The important thing for us is that we closed the transaction before the end of the year and we hope to close other transactions in the first part of 2025. As our pipeline looks, we are confident in this», said the representative of BCR Seed Starter. The discussions were good from the beginning and BCR Seed Starter did not show the rigidity that could be expected from a player coming from the banking industry, said Ion Gavrilescu, co-founder of FieldOS. «The atmosphere was very good, that is, for a bank you think that it is a more rigid structure. But there are some people who are open to new things, to learn – after all, BCR is the first institution of this type that created a fund in Romania. It's an important signal». Gavrilescu founded FieldOS together with Cristian Dragomir.
Ion Gavrilescu, co-founder, FieldOS: We aim for revenues of 800,000 euros, one million euros for 2025. We are quite close to break-even, next year we will probably be in profit. In addition to financing, access to experts and the potential integration of FieldOS into the BCR George ecosystem, which would facilitate the adoption of the platform by companies, it is also very important that the bank can introduce the start-up of some large potential customers, Gavrilescu also said. With everyone facing a «flood» of emails from companies wanting to sell something, an introduction from BCR counts, he said. «When everyone is trying to sell and sending a lot of emails, you have a huge advantage when you have a warm intro.» I think that advantage is 1000x when you have a «warm intro» from BCR, that is, you come with a super-vote of trust», said the representative of FieldOS. The company's growth potential is significant, given that digitization for workers who carry out activities on the ground is at the beginning. «Globally, 80% of the workforce is in the field, there's 2.7 billion people who haven't worked with software, they're not used to it – you basically give a phone and software to a cleaner or someone to a technician or a security guard – it may practically be the first time software is put into the hands of a worker in these industries. And at the moment, if you don't digitize, you don't have information from these people. We developed this software precisely for these people who perform simple, but many and unsupervised tasks. At the moment with all the AI, with everything that is happening, information and data are the key.» FieldOS will close the current year with revenues of 400,000 euros, and plans to achieve a doubling for 2025. «We aim for revenues of 800,000 euros, one million euros for 2025», said Gavrilescu. «We are quite close to break-even. Next year we will probably be profitable», he added. Including the round from BCR Seed Starter FieldOS attracted a total of 1.7 million euros in funding.