SOLIDKOSMOS, the first spin-off from the University of Piraeus Research Center, has secured €300,000 in funding from Corallia Ventures, for the commercialization of a groundbreaking technology that enables the monitoring and enhancement of the reliability of critical computing systems in markets such as space, defense, data centers, and artificial intelligence, where system resilience is a critical factor for security and business continuity.
According to the relevant press release, SK-RAFT is an advanced electronic design automation (EDA) that allows for the introduction and simulation of errors on actual hardware, with the aim of verifying the reliability and resilience of critical systems.
The global market for EDA tools exceeds €20 billion annually and is growing rapidly, as artificial intelligence, data centers, and space systems require increasingly complex and reliable computing platforms.
The investment will accelerate SK-RAFT’s transition from a mature research technology to a commercially available product with global reach, funding its technical development, the implementation of pilot applications with early-adopter customers, and the company’s commercial expansion into global markets for critical computing systems.
The challenge of reliability verification
As the economy and society increasingly rely on complex computing systems, their reliability is emerging as a critical factor for security, functionality, and business continuity.
From satellites and aircraft to data centers, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence systems, and medical devices, even a single error can lead to operational failures, financial losses, or the failure of critical missions, as stated in the relevant announcement.
For this reason, manufacturers are developing increasingly advanced mechanisms for fault detection, isolation, and recovery (Fault Detection, Isolation, and Recovery – FDIR), which must be systematically verified through controlled fault injection in real system implementations. However, the available methods have significant limitations.
Register-Transfer Level (RTL) simulations can be used from the early stages of design, but they are often time-consuming and fail to fully capture the behavior of complex hardware and software systems.
In contrast, physical fault-injection tests, such as radiation, electromagnetic interference (EMI), or laser fault injection tests, provide highly reliable results but require specialized facilities, high costs, and significant preparation time. As a result, verifying the resilience of critical systems remains a complex, costly, and time-consuming process today.
Reliability verification on real hardware with SK-RAFT
SK-RAFT enables the controlled introduction of faults directly into real hardware, leveraging interfaces and related debugging and control mechanisms. In this way, development teams can conduct extensive campaigns to evaluate the resilience of their systems on actual hardware and in their physical test environments, without the need for access to specialized facilities. This approach enables the systematic verification of FDIR mechanisms at multiple stages of the development cycle, from testing individual subsystems to the final validation of the entire system’s operation.
This approach enables engineers to identify design weaknesses and vulnerabilities early on, verify that protection and recovery mechanisms function as intended, and significantly reduce the risk of costly redesigns in advanced stages of development.
At the same time, SK-RAFT complements physical fault-injection tests, such as radiation or electromagnetic interference tests, allowing for better preparation, optimization, and debugging of systems before they are transferred to specialized testing facilities. This reduces both the cost and the time required for testing, while increasing the effectiveness of experimental reliability campaigns.
Use of Funds and Development Strategy
The funding will accelerate SK-RAFT’s transition from a technology with a strong research foundation and proven experimental application to a fully commercial EDA tool. The funds will be allocated to expanding support for AMD’s next-generation computing platforms, including the AMD Versal family, implementing pilot projects with early-adopter customers, as well as developing reference designs, technical demos, and specialized technical documentation (application notes).
These initiatives will accelerate the commercial adoption of SK-RAFT and enhance its utilization in advanced reliability and resilience verification scenarios for systems based on FPGAs, processors (CPUs), and artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators, which are used in critical infrastructure such as data centers, edge computing applications, space systems, and high-performance AI platforms.
SOLIDKOSMOS’s initial target market is FPGA-based aerospace applications operating in environments with particularly stringent requirements for reliability and fault tolerance. In these sectors, the systematic verification of system behavior in the face of failures is a critical factor for mission success and operational safety.
The company’s long-term strategic goal is to establish SK-RAFT as an internationally recognized EDA tool for the evaluation, verification, and enhancement of the reliability of critical computing systems, serving high-tech markets such as aerospace, defense, data centers, the automotive industry, and artificial intelligence applications.
Statements
Commenting on the announcement, Dr. Dimitris Agakatsikas, Co-founder and CEO of SOLIDKOSMOS, stated: “As modern computing systems take on increasingly critical and autonomous functions, their reliability becomes a strategic requirement.
From satellites, aircraft, and defense systems to data centers and artificial intelligence applications, the ability to predict, detect, and manage faults is critical to mission safety and success.
With SK-RAFT, we empower engineers to introduce controlled faults into real hardware, assess the resilience of their systems, and verify the effectiveness of protection mechanisms before they are deployed in the field.
The investment from Corallia Ventures allows us to accelerate the transition of a technology born from years of research into an internationally competitive commercial product, contributing to the creation of safer, more reliable, and more resilient computing systems for the markets of the future.”
Michalis Psarakis, Professor at the University of Piraeus, Co-founder and CTO of SOLIDKOSMOS, stated: “SOLIDKOSMOS was born out of a long-standing research effort at the Embedded Computing Systems Laboratory of the University of Piraeus, where, for more than 15 years, we have been developing cutting-edge technologies for the reliability and resilience of critical computing systems.
The investment by Corallia Ventures confirms that the knowledge generated at Greek universities can be transformed into innovative solutions with international impact and real value for industry. For us, SOLIDKOSMOS is not just a business initiative, but also a vehicle for transferring know-how from research to the market, creating new opportunities for the students and researchers involved in developing these technologies.
With the support of Corallia Ventures, we are able to accelerate this transition while strengthening an ecosystem where academic excellence, innovation, and entrepreneurship work in tandem to create high-tech solutions that can penetrate the global market.”
Professor Michael Sfakianakis, Rector of the University of Piraeus, stated: “The establishment and funding of SOLIDKOSMOS, the University of Piraeus’s first spin-off, is a historic milestone for our institution.
It demonstrates in practice that the academic excellence and original research produced in our laboratories can be successfully linked to entrepreneurship and the international high-tech market.
As a University, we steadfastly support the creation of innovative tech startups that open new avenues for our researchers, create highly specialized jobs in our country, and strengthen Greece’s position on the global map of deep-tech (deep-tech).”
Dr. Jorge-A. Sanchez-P., Partner at Corallia Ventures, stated: “SOLIDKOSMOS is an excellent example of how Greek research excellence can be transformed into deep-tech products with global commercial potential.
At a time when the explosive growth of artificial intelligence applications, autonomous systems, and new space missions is dramatically increasing the requirements for verifying the reliability and resilience of computing infrastructures, the ability to verify their resilience in a timely and realistic manner is becoming increasingly valuable.
SK-RAFT fills a significant technological gap between traditional simulations and costly physical testing, enabling the evaluation of critical systems on actual hardware with greater speed, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness.
We believe that SOLIDKOSMOS possesses the technological foundations, expertise, and international momentum to establish itself as a key player in the field of reliability and verification technologies for advanced computing systems.”