# Bogdan Apostol

> Bogdan Apostol is the co-founder and CEO of Nestor, a San Francisco-based AI-powered people intelligence platform that helps enterprises build skills-based organizations. A Romanian-born computer scientist with a PhD in Computer Vision from Gheorghe Asachi Technical University, he founded Nestor in 2018 after being accepted into Y Combinator's S18 batch. Before writing a single line of product code, he conducted over 400 customer discovery calls. Nestor has raised $6.07M in funding, serves 10,000+ employees worldwide across F500 companies, and has earned 67 G2 badges including a perfect 10/10 for quality of support.

- **Role:** CEO & Co-Founder at Nestor
- **Organizations:** Nestor, Y Combinator, Marionette Studio, Emojer, FreshCreative, Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization (Romania, Advisor)
- **From:** Romania
- **Nationality:** Romanian
- **Education:** PhD in Computer Science / Computer Vision and Image Processing, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Romania, Bachelor of Engineering Science (BESc) in Information Technology, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Romania
- **Known for:** Founded Nestor and guided it through Y Combinator S18 (2018), Raised $6.07M total funding including $2M seed from Eleven Ventures (Dec 2022), Built platform serving 10,000+ employees across F500 and global enterprises

## Career timeline

- **2005-2009** — BESc in Information Technology, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University, Romania
- **2009-2014** — PhD research in Computer Vision and Image Processing; research cited by Intel and LG
- **2014-2016** — CTO at FreshCreative; co-founded Marionette Studio and Emojer
- **2018** — Founded Nestor; accepted into Y Combinator S18 batch
- **2018-2022** — Scaled Nestor to 10,000+ users across F500 companies and global enterprises
- **2022-12** — Raised $2M seed round led by Eleven Ventures; total funding $6.07M
- **2023** — Speaker at How to Web 2023; appointed Advisor to Minister at Romania's Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization
- **2024-2025** — Nestor earns 67 G2 badges, perfect 10/10 quality scores; serves healthcare, finance, telecom, IT, retail globally

## Achievements

- Founded Nestor and guided it through Y Combinator S18 (2018)
- Raised $6.07M total funding including $2M seed from Eleven Ventures (Dec 2022)
- Built platform serving 10,000+ employees across F500 and global enterprises
- Nestor ranked #1 Easiest to Use Skills Management Software on G2 among 89 providers
- 67 G2 badges in Spring 2025 across six core categories
- Perfect 10/10 G2 scores for Quality of Support and Ease of Doing Business
- PhD research cited by Intel and LG
- Conducted 400+ customer discovery calls before product development
- Advisor to the Minister at Romania's Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization
- Accepted into Orange Fab accelerator program (Romania) prior to YC

## Latest updates

- **2025-03** — Nestor earns 67 G2 badges in Spring 2025 across six product categories including Skills Management, Performance Management, and OKRs
- **2024-12** — Nestor earns perfect 10/10 G2 scores for Quality of Support and Ease of Doing Business in Winter 2025 awards
- **2023-10** — Bogdan speaks at How to Web 2023, a leading European startup conference
- **2022-12** — Nestor closes $2M seed round led by Eleven Ventures with participation from Underline Ventures

## Links

- Website: https://nestorup.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bogdanapostol86
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/NestorUpHQ
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NestorUp

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/bogdan-apostol
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-17