DiscreteStack, a Bulgarian software company selling AI infrastructure to regulated enterprises, announced Monday it has raised €800,000 (approximately $900,000) in seed funding led by CleverPine Ventures. Angels Milen Manev and Stoil Vasilev joined the round alongside several smaller investors, the company said.
The startup's pitch centers on a growing anxiety among European businesses: how to deploy AI tools without running afoul of data sovereignty requirements or the continent's expanding regulatory framework. DiscreteStack's software runs entirely on customer-controlled infrastructure, whether that means on-premise data centers, private clouds, or systems with no internet connection whatsoever.
The company declined to share its valuation. Corporate filings show DiscreteStack registered as a Bulgarian joint-stock company on October 9, 2025. LinkedIn data suggests the team numbers between two and 10 employees, though the company has not confirmed precise headcount.
Betting on regulatory pressure
The funding arrives as European regulators tighten oversight of artificial intelligence systems. The EU AI Act entered into force on August 1, 2024, with phased enforcement extending to August 2, 2028, requiring regulated entities to meet transparency and data governance standards that many observers expect will complicate the use of third-party cloud AI services.
DiscreteStack said it plans to direct the capital toward customer acquisition in finance, insurance, and public sector markets, alongside increased GPU capacity for product development. The startup says it has already secured initial enterprise customers in Bulgaria and internationally within eight months of founding, though it did not specify customer names or contract sizes.
Founder and CEO Hristo Todorov brings a track record in the Bulgarian tech ecosystem. He previously co-founded Upnetix, a Google-certified developer agency acquired by ScaleFocus in 2018, according to the Sofia Investment Agency. More recently, he co-founded CleverPine and led a 2023 joint venture with Lufthansa Technik called ViTech.
That history connects directly to the round's lead investor: CleverPine Ventures operates as the investment arm associated with CleverPine. Angel investor Manev founded Next Solutions, which UKG acquired into its Bulgaria Innovation Hub in February 2024. Vasilev co-founded and leads Paypercut.
A different pricing gamble
Where DiscreteStack diverges from many AI infrastructure plays is in its business model. The company charges a flat annual license per server rather than usage-based pricing tied to tokens or API calls. The bet, according to company materials, is that procurement teams at large organizations will value cost predictability over marginal efficiency. DiscreteStack's promotional materials claim cost reductions of "up to 90%" in certain scenarios, though such figures typically reflect best-case deployments.
The platform employs what the company describes as an "intelligent runtime" that routes requests based on query complexity and caching, with performance tuning customized to each GPU configuration. DiscreteStack said it holds patent-pending optimizations designed for single-server deployments of state-of-the-art open-weight models, though details of those patent applications remain private.
The broader market for AI infrastructure software has attracted substantial venture interest recently. At least five startups positioning themselves as "AI operating systems" raised $30 million or more in the first half of 2026, according to public filings. Sycamore pulled in $65 million in a March seed round, Conduct closed a $60 million Series A in June, and Dapple, Consensus, and Maximum each raised $30 million between May and July. None of those companies emphasize on-premise or air-gapped deployment as their primary focus.
DiscreteStack joined NVIDIA's Inception program in June 2026. The company also claims recognition from the European Innovation Council in the form of a "Seal of Excellence" and membership in the AI Partnerships Corp network, though neither organization publicly lists DiscreteStack on accessible rosters.
"European AI does not mean an American product hosted on a server in Frankfurt," Todorov said in the funding announcement. "We believe AI will become critical infrastructure for businesses."
The startup is currently hiring for a business development role in Sofia. Bulgarian corporate registry data shows DiscreteStack formed two subsidiaries in June 2026: DS Enablement and DS Infra. The filings offer no detail on the divisions' respective functions.
