AI
Products where the model is the product, or where it quietly makes an old job ten times easier.
- Agents and tooling
- Applied AI in a real industry
- Developer infrastructure
Bansko, Bulgaria · Pirin mountains
3 months in the mountains, from an idea to a product.
Startup Bansko is an incubator for early-stage founders working in AI, sustainability, or art. Mentorship, working sessions, startup perks — and a whole town of people building something too.
Winter cohort · ski season
Summer cohort · hike & festivals
3 months, in person
Open to founders from anywhere — and to locals
~10 coworking spaces
In a mountain town. That ratio tells you who moved here.
Run by founders who have been through the incubator and accelerator machine themselves — and built, shipped and scaled.
What we incubate
AI, sustainability, art — and the overlaps.
Pick one or bring a project that sits between them — the applications in the overlap tend to be the most interesting ones we get. Built for early-stage teams, and we weight local impact: things that leave something behind in Bansko count for more here.
Sustainability
Impact that survives contact with a spreadsheet — measurable, and viable as a business.
- Climate and circularity
- Supply-chain transparency
- Measurement and reporting
Art
Creative practice with a business around it — tools for artists, or art that is itself the venture.
- Creative tools and platforms
- Digital and physical craft
- Culture as a product
The programme
Four things you get. The last one is the point.
Three months, in person, with a cohort small enough that everybody knows what everybody else is working on.
Mentorship
Founders and operators who have actually shipped. Some live here year-round; others come in for a week. Matched to your track, not assigned by rota.
Education
Working sessions on what early teams get wrong: first users, positioning, pricing, what a pre-seed deck really has to prove, shipping with AI daily.
Perks
Credits and discounts across cloud, AI, CRM and tooling — the usual accelerator stack, plus local perks you can’t get remotely.
Community
The real reason to come. You never feel alone here, and the people around you are building the next great thing right beside you.
Everything that’s included
- Pitch training — until the story lands in three minutes
- Business model validation — pressure-tested against real numbers
- Product & UX consulting — hands-on, on your actual product
- Fundraising preparation — deck, data room, the questions you’ll get
- Workshops — AI, marketing, automation, sales, ops, logistics
- Weekly accountability — you commit out loud, every week
- Mentorship — matched to your track, not assigned by rota
- Network — founders, mentors, investors, the town itself
Demo Day
The programme ends in front of a room: fellow founders, mentors, invited investors and the local community. It’s the deadline that makes the other twelve weeks real — and the reason pitch training starts early rather than the week before.
3months, in person
2cohorts a year
~10coworking spaces in town
1mountain range: Pirin
Why Bansko
A ski town that quietly became a builder town.
Cheap enough to stay three months. Fast enough to work from. Beautiful enough that you don’t want to leave. Small enough that you know everyone by week two.
Fast, cheap, and set up for this
Excellent wifi, roughly ten coworking spaces, coliving as well as regular rentals, and accommodation affordable enough that three months of thinking isn’t three months of earning.
A community that already exists
A settled expat and remote-work scene lives here year-round — not a seasonal pop-up. Nomads return every summer for the nomad festival. Mentors live here.
The mountains do half the work
Pirin National Park starts at the edge of town. Deep focus during the day, and something genuinely worth walking into afterwards.
And the tax regime is absurdly founder-friendly
10% corporate tax, 5% on dividends, no exit tax, inside the EU and Schengen. Cheap to incorporate and cheap to run — we’ll introduce you to the accountants and lawyers. More on setting up →
Two cohorts a year
Same programme. Very different three months.
Pick the season that matches how you work best — or tell us you’re happy with either.
Winter cohort
Short days, long evenings, and a town that turns inward. The best cohort if you want to disappear into the work and come out with a product. Ski before the first session or after the last one; recover in the thermal spas.
Summer cohort
Light until late and everybody outdoors. Hiking and biking in Pirin, Nomad Fest filling the town with builders, and the jazz festival in the old centre. The best cohort if you want to meet people while you build.
Bulgaria as a base
One of the friendliest places in the EU to run a company.
This is the part founders usually discover late. Bulgaria is in the EU and in Schengen, and the tax regime is the flattest and simplest on the continent — which is exactly what you want when you’re lean and want to think about the product instead of the paperwork.
10%Corporate tax — a flat rate, the lowest in the EU
5%Dividend tax when you take money out
NoneNo exit tax
EUSingle market, and in Schengen since 2025
We’ll introduce you to the people who set it up
You don’t have to work out Bulgarian company law from a forum post. We put you in touch with accountants and lawyers who do this every week — company formation, VAT registration, and the monthly bookkeeping after it.
Built for lean builders
Cheap to incorporate, cheap to run, cheap to live. The whole point is that your runway goes into the product rather than into overhead — and that you can stay focused for the full three months.
Rates shown are the Bulgarian rates in force at the time of writing and are general information, not tax or legal advice — a 2026 proposal to double the dividend rate was tabled and not adopted, so confirm the current position with an accountant before you decide anything. That’s what the introductions are for.
Perks
The unglamorous part that saves you real money.
Startup credit codes and discounts — the same stack incubators and accelerators hand out, so your runway goes further. Plumbing, not a reason to apply.
The usual accelerator stack
Cloud credits, AI credits, CRM, design and developer tooling — the services you’d be paying for anyway.
AWS
Google Cloud
DigitalOcean
HubSpot
Notion
Figma
Stripe
AI model credits
The ones you can only get here
Local perks are the genuinely differentiated half, and no remote programme can match them.
Coworking space discounts
Ski equipment discounts with partners
Mentor time
Accountant & lawyer introductions
Funding
Getting you ready, and getting you introduced.
Fundraising preparation runs through the programme — the deck, the numbers behind it, the data room, and the questions you will actually be asked. Then we open the doors we have.
Microfinancing
Routes to small-ticket funding that suit a lean team at the start — the amounts that buy months of runway rather than a growth plan.
EU grants
Bulgaria sits inside the EU funding landscape, and non-dilutive money is badly underused by early teams. We help you work out which programmes you are actually eligible for.
Contacts for fundraising
Introductions to investors and to founders who have recently raised — often more useful than the investor, because they’ll tell you what the process was really like.
How the preparation actually runs
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Weeks 1–4
Sharpen the story
What you’re building, who for, and why now — before any deck exists.
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Weeks 5–9
Build the numbers
The model underneath the story, and the traction to put in front of it.
-
Weeks 10–12
Deck and data room
Assembled properly, then torn apart in practice sessions.
-
Demo Day
Pitch, then introductions
You present, and we open the doors we have. Not asking cold.
To be straight about it: the programme itself is not an investor, and none of this is a promise of money. What we can promise is that you will be ready to ask for it, and that you will not be asking cold.
Who runs it
Both of us have sat on your side of the table.
We’ve been through incubators and accelerators as founders — fundraising, pre-seed, seed and bridge rounds, crowdfunding, scaling up. We know how to filter the bullshit and focus on the core.
Toshi
Todor Lazov · Co-founder · Bansko
Serial tech founder. Product Lead & CTO and co-founder of goodbag, rated 5/5 in the Verbraucherzentrale app test and featured in Forbes Bulgaria. Co-founded the first tablet-menu restaurant in the German-speaking world. Born Global Champion (Austrian Federal Economic Chamber). Has worked with IKEA, Denner, Nestlé and Recup through his ventures. Works across AI and sustainability — a fractional AI CTO practice alongside goodbag’s impact work.
Kat
Kat Stam · Co-founder · Bansko
Data scientist and founder, and a professional tech assessor for large companies. Has fought forest fires from space, using AI on satellite imagery. Track record across some of Europe’s most selective startup programmes — the European Space Agency’s startup ecosystem, Google for Startups, and Startup Lisboa. Works across AI and sustainability, and brings the applicant’s-eye view of what a good programme owes its cohort.
Startup Lisboa
FAQ
Questions we get asked.
Who is Startup Bansko for?
Early-stage founders — solo or small teams of up to about four — building in AI, sustainability, or art. You should have an idea you’re serious about and three months you can genuinely commit. Open to founders from anywhere, and just as much to people already living in Bulgaria — locals are welcome and actively encouraged to apply.
Do I need a finished product?
No. Idea stage is welcome. What we look for is a clear problem, a reason it’s you working on it, and evidence you can ship.
Do I need funding?
No. Unfunded and bootstrapped teams are the core audience. The application asks about funding so we can match mentors and expectations, not to filter you out.
How long is the programme, and when does it run?
Three months, in person, twice a year — one winter cohort and one summer cohort.
Winter or summer — which should I pick?
Winter is quieter and colder, with skiing and thermal spas; the best cohort for heads-down building. Summer has hiking, biking, Nomad Fest and the jazz festival; the best cohort for meeting people. Both do the same programme.
Do I have to be in Bansko the whole time?
You need to be here for most of the programme. The community is the point and it doesn’t work remotely, so trips away are fine but treating it as a remote programme isn’t.
What does the programme include?
Pitch training, business model validation, product and UX consulting, fundraising preparation, and workshops across AI, marketing, automation, sales, ops and logistics. Plus mentorship from founders who’ve shipped, weekly accountability, startup perks and credits, the network, and Demo Day at the end.
What about accommodation, and what does it cost?
Long-term stays of around three months typically run between €400 and €600 a month, depending on the apartment and how central it is. There are coliving spaces as well as regular rentals. We help you land somewhere — tell us what you need in the application.
Can I legally stay in Bulgaria for three months?
If you’re an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen, freely. Bulgaria has been a full Schengen member since January 2025, so if your nationality has visa-free access you can normally stay up to 90 days in any 180 — which just about covers a cohort. For a longer or more comfortable stay there is the long-stay Type D visa, and since December 2025 a digital nomad visa for remote workers and freelancers earning above roughly €31,000 a year, issued for a year and renewable once. Rules depend on your nationality and change, so confirm your own case with the Bulgarian embassy or consulate — and tell us in the application if you’d like help thinking it through.
Do I need a company already?
No — you don’t need to be incorporated to apply, or to start. You should be incorporated by Demo Day, and part of the programme is helping you get there with the right structure rather than a rushed one.
How much does it cost to set up a limited company in Bulgaria?
Usually €300–500 to register the company and get it VAT-registered, then around €150 a month for basic accounting. Notary costs are small. That’s one of the cheapest company setups in the EU, and it pairs with 10% corporate tax and 5% tax on dividends. We’ll introduce you to accountants and lawyers who do this every week.
Can I apply as a solo founder?
Yes. Bansko is unusually good for solo founders, precisely because you’re surrounded by other people doing the same thing.
What do I need to apply?
A pitch deck, plus a short description of your idea and your team. The form takes a few minutes.
What language is the programme in?
English.
Apply
Tell us what you’re building.
Applications are open on a rolling basis for the next winter and summer cohorts. A few minutes now; we read every one and reply either way.