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Traian Chivriga raised two million lei in half a year to bring Moldovan entrepreneurs away from 1C, the outdated Russian accounting software still slowing them down.
21 Oct 2025
In the 1990s, Traian Chivriga watched his grandmother run a tiny village shop on trust. She kept a thick ledger of small debts. “Take it now, pay me when the pension comes,” she used to tell her shop visitors.
That fragile notebook held her whole enterprise together.
Decades later, after studying global economics and management in Germany and founding various companies, from artist support to medical assistance, Traian launched Sirius.expert.
To him, it’s as if he is making his grandmother’s notebook digital. But for thousands of Moldovan small and medium-sized businesses that no longer want to chase payments. “We help people and businesses get paid faster,” he says.
He first noticed the scale of this pain while mentoring founders at XY Partners, a well-known Moldovan startup accelerator. “Owners were staring at one number, the bank balance, and waiting days for 1C files,” Traian explains. 1C is a Russian-born accounting program widely used in Moldova. Installed only on the accountant’s desktop, it leaves founders in the dark until a report arrives by email. With no clear view of their cash flow, many founders had to take out loans at 30–40% interest just to bridge the gap between invoices and payments.
Sirius grew out of that gap. It isn’t a heavy suite like 1C. It’s a lighter, human-facing tool: invoices, payments, and reports shown instantly, not “in two or three days.”
Traian Chivriga wanted to change the way Moldovans are operating their finances. So he came up with a user-friendly platform. Photo credit: sirius.expert
Building the digital rails for businesses
“What I learned from that notebook is that money is mostly about timing and trust. If you know who owes what and when it gets paid, you can sleep,” Traian says. That’s the feeling Sirius has already achieved. “We wanted not a heavy 1C system, not waiting days for files, but one place where you see what matters and what to do next.”
Now, a typical Tuesday looks simple. A business owner opens Sirius, scans overdue invoices, and with three clicks, sends reminders via email, link, or even a chat message. The system checks across different Moldovan banks to match payments to invoices. The value isn’t just hours saved. “It lowers your anxiety. You feel you are in control,” Traian says.
Sirius hides complex engineering behind a simple interface and brings already existing digital tools together. For example, AURA codes are official confirmation numbers generated by Moldova’s e-Factura system to validate invoices for tax purposes. Normally, businesses log in on a desktop to get them, but Sirius lets users generate AURA codes instantly from a phone. Then, an entrepreneur can sign invoices and link them directly to their bank accounts so payments are reconciled automatically. What once took long minutes of typing has become just a few clicks.
“Our clients went through pain with us… It bugged for some time. I had ten parallel chats: ‘this doesn’t work, change that,’ and so on,” Traian mentions with a smile.
Millions in a day
Nevertheless, the growth has started to spike. In August, Sirius processed €164,000 (3.2 million MDL) in monthly invoices. By September, they reached €153,000 (approximately three million MDL) in a single day. Early adopters didn’t churn even when the product was rough. Traian remembers the first sign-ups: two of his friends tested a link he sent late one evening; by next week, both were paying customers.
Security is non-negotiable. “If we screw up the security of data, the company is dead,” Traian says. Sirius encrypts everything, keeps servers in Germany, and limits internal access. For customers, that rigor is invisible by design: they should only notice two statuses: sent and paid.
Photo credit: Iurie Gandrabura
Legally, Sirius is incorporated in the US, but Moldova is the “experimental ground territory.” It’s where the team tests quickly with real enterprises, fixes bugs in parallel chats, and ships fast. Romania is next on the map. Funding to get there came in steps: a 3-day rural startup event Tech Village, and the Startup Moldova Summit unlocked early checks.
“At Tech Village, we got our first investor in 2024. Then at the Startup Moldova Summit, I met another one. We just had lunch, talked, and after that, he decided to invest. Altogether, it took us about six months to close the $140,000 (over two million Moldovan lei) pre-round,” Traian recalls.
Mentors, peers, and what success really looks like
Traian doesn’t name a single role model. “I want to build a big fintech company and be the person others look at.” Still, he points to people who made the path clearer. Ghenadie Cernei from Finergy, an engineer who spent decades modernizing Moldova's banking system, was supportive. “I would call and ask, 'How does this or that thing actually bring money?’”
Several big Moldovan banks use Finergy’s tech. Photo credit: Iurie Gandrabura
Finergy is one of the Moldovan startups quietly reshaping the country’s financial backbone. Founded by Ghenadie Cernei and Maxim Burdiean, the company focuses on instant payments for both entrepreneurs and citizens.
When Moldova launched its national system, MIA, more than 700 companies joined in just three months. Finergy’s product, miaPOS, runs silently in the background, speaking the same technical language as Europe’s rails (ISO 20022 and SEPA). This makes it possible for a chatbot, a support desk, or even a government service to trigger a payment the second a bill is issued.
On the other side of Moldova’s tech map, Planable shows a different route to global relevance. Born in Chișinău, the collaboration platform scaled internationally and was acquired by SE Ranking in 2025, a global tech firm with $35M+ in annual revenue.
Planable co-founders Xenia Muntean (from left), Vlad Caluș, and Nicu Gudumac, together with Chief Marketing Officer Miruna Dragomir. Photo credit: Planable
Alongside players like Salt Edge, which helps European banks comply with PSD2, and Fagura, a peer-to-peer lending platform that has already passed €2 million in loans, Finergy is part of a generation of startups building beyond Moldova’s borders.
Sirius’s own numbers fill in the texture. Beyond the daily spikes from Traian’s transcript, the company cites 910+ active users, 100 million MDL processed, and 30,000+ hours of admin time saved since launch.
Ask Traian what he hopes to show in a year, and he doesn’t reach for foreign logos. “Contracts outside Moldova and partner logos - that’s vanity! What I’d love is if you start a company and use our product because it makes your life better,” he says
This article has been written by Journo Birds, with the support of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
© 2024 Startup Moldova Foundation. All rights reserved.
Serghei Cobuscean
Administrative Director at M Grinder ICT
An experienced project manager in both public and private sectors, with focus on attracting and managing aid and investment. Serghei established strategic partnerships with international donors, raising significant funds (e.g., €7 million for energy efficiency initiatives). Provided strategic consultancy to over 50 public bodies and private companies, leading to improved operational efficiencies. Managed cross-border cooperation projects, coordinating with multiple partners from different countries. Communication language: ENG, RO