Romanian Startup Awards 2026: Mr.Benny Nominated for Top Cybersecurity Solutions

On Thursday, March 12, 2026, the technology ecosystem in Romania and the Republic of Moldova will gather in Bucharest for the Romania Startup Awards gala. Among the startups nominated for innovation this year is Mr.Benny, the cybersecurity and IT management spinoff developed by OPTI Software, currently in public beta.

UPDATE March 20, 2025: MrBenny on the cybersecurity podium

Mr. Benny won 3rd place at the Romania Startup Awards 2026. The project is currently in public beta, but the feedback from the community has been extremely valuable.

OPTI Software cybersecurity initiatives

Mr. Benny is a cybersecurity and IT management solution for SMEs, developed to make digital security more accessible to companies that do not have dedicated IT teams. For cybersecurity, you may also be interested in:

See OPTI Software on LinkedIn

About Romania Startup Awards 2026

The gala is the main annual event celebrating the most promising local technology projects, organized by ROTSA (Romanian Tech Startups Association) in partnership with key industry players, such as start-up.ro, Techcelerator, How to Web, Startup Moldova, ROStartup and TechAngels Romania.

The event brings together global founders, investors and innovators, setting the direction of innovation for the current year. For this year's edition, 60 startups from all fields were selected, divided into 17 award categories.

Public voting is open until March 11 to support their favorite founders. Vote here

Mr.Benny's nomination

The selection of Mr.Benny among the competition finalists comes as a reconfirmation of the acute need for original cybersecurity solutions on the Romanian IT management market. This nomination follows the validation in autumn 2025, when the OPTI spinoff won the Digital Startup Excellence award at the FACTORY 4.0 Awards 2025.

What does Mr.Benny do?

Mr.Benny functions as an intelligent assistant (all-in-one) for system administrators and IT managers. The platform manages equipment inventory (asset management), network topology maps, remote platforms used by employees and automatically confronts devices with a database of over 1 million hardware and software vulnerabilities (CVE), additionally calculating a risk score per organization, asset and network.

View on LinkedIn

Event and agenda:

Date: Thursday, March 12, 2026

Schedule: starting at 17:00

Location: Takeovers Studios, Calea Dorobanți 164, Bucharest.

16:30 – Reception and registration of participants
17:00 – Official opening with ROTSA representatives
17:10 – Top initiatives in local tech hubs
17:30 – Awards Ceremony - Set 1
17:45 – Diana Ardelean, ROTSA Executive Director: ROTSA Founders Launch Board
17:55 – Ciprian Stănescu, Founder SIS: Pre-launch Business Forward
18:05 – Awards Ceremony - Set 2
18:25 – Panel: Romania's Competitiveness through Innovation and DeepTech Startups & Scaleups. The Necessary Framework for Supporting Emerging Technologies. ScaleUp & DeepTech Manifesto for Romania (Moderator: Cristian Dascălu, Managing Partner Techcelerator)
- Irineu Darău, Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism
- Alina Roxana Gîrbea, Secretary of State for Innovation and Digitalization - Ministry of European Funds
- Smaranda Heroiu, Executive Director, Upgrade100
- Dan Mihaescu, Managing Partner, GapMinderVC
- Valentin Filip, Managing Partners, Fortech Investments
- Cristian Patachia, Innovation Manager, Orange
- Ionut Stanimir, Chief Brand Officer, BCR
- Mihai Stanciu, Innovation Manager, PPC
- Marius Istrate, President of TechAngels
- Corina Vasile, President of ANIS
- Sergiu Negut, President of Romanian Business Leaders
- Marius Mitroi, UEFISCDI
19:25 – Award Ceremony - Set 3
19:40 – Award Ceremony - Set 4
20:00 – Conclusions & dinner & networking Cocktail