In recent years, nature-inspired algorithms have been popular due to the fact that many real-world optimization problems are increasingly large, complex and dynamic. By reasons of the size and complexity of the problems, it is necessary to develop an optimization method whose efficiency is measured by finding the near optimal solution within a reasonable amount of time. A black hole is an object that has enough masses in a small enough volume that its gravitational force is strong enough to prevent light or anything else from escaping. Stellar mass Black hole Optimization (SBO) is a novel optimization algorithm inspired from the property of the gravity's relentless pull of black holes which are presented in the Universe. In this paper SBO algorithm is tested on benchmark optimization test functions and compared with the Cuckoo Search, Particle Swarm Optimization and Artificial Bee Colony systems. The experiment results show that the SBO outperforms the existing methods. © 2017, IGI Global. All rights reserved.