Sofia Investment Agency is organising the mentor programme at “Accelerator Startup Sofia” of Sofia Municipality on September 11 and 12. The 12 mentors come from the start-up ecosystem, including VC funds, the private and public sectors and academia. The two-day training will cover a wide range of topics like business planning, sales, design and presentation, digital marketing, fundraising, financing tools, entering foreign markets, working with institutions and more.
We thank the mentors who will join the training programme of “Accelerator Startup Sofia”. We are delighted to have attracted experts from LAUNCHub, BrightCap, EY Bulgaria, Dimitrova, Staykova and Partners, Out2Bound, 356Labs, The DOTS, Vangavis, UNWE and Fund of Funds to the initiative. We believe that their experience and guidance will help the successful development of young companies.
See here all mentors and session topics during the two days of the mentoring programme.
“Accelerator Startup Sofia” launched in January 2019. More than 40 innovative startup companies and projects applied and 13 of them received grants of up to BGN 10 000 and access to the mentoring programme in September.
The beneficiaries of the programme develop products and services in areas such as 3D printing, consumer experience, marketing and advertising, health care, education and others.
The initiative is a pilot project of Sofia Municipality and is jointly implemented by Invest Sofia, the Municipal SME Guarantee Fund and Sofia Municipality’s Europe Programme. The programme aims to support innovative, social and start-up companies that develop innovative products, services or processes. Check out the companies and finalists in the first edition of the Accelerator.
Our team presented the business environment in Sofia and current industry data to representatives of the Ningbo city administration. We discussed the priority industries of the capital city with a focus on the developed human capital of Sofia.
The many initiatives with which the agency seeks to support the city’s economy were also a focus topic of the meeting. The guests expressed interest in the City-to-City program, which helps Bulgarian companies to enter foreign markets and facilitates foreign companies to start their business in Sofia.
One of the highlights of the visit was Sofia Tech Park. The guests from the Ningbo City government gained an insight into the operation of the first technology park in Bulgaria. The tech park’s activities to promote direct cooperation between business and academia were of particular interest. The collaboration with PhD students and professors from Bulgarian universities is crucial for stimulating innovation and creating new products. The useful practices in this direction are of interest to Ningbo, as the city is the economic centre of the southern part of the Yangtze River Delta, an engine of social reform in modern China and an important centre in the automotive, creative and other industries where innovation is extremely valuable.
After the meeting ended, the delegation left for Plovdiv to explore Bulgaria’s second largest city.
The event will give companies the opportunity to remotely talk to candidates who are currently not in Bulgaria
Over 1,500 Bulgarians with international experience who are looking for professional development opportunities back home will attend Career Hive – the biggest event targeted specifically at Bulgarians with work or educational qualifications abroad.
The event will take place on September 4, 2019 at Inter Expo Center and will be held under the patronage of the President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev.
The organizers, Tuk-Tam, are building upon their solid foundation of 11 years of experience in organizing career focused events, starting this new initiative. Career Hive is the ideological continuation to the emblematic “Career in Bulgaria. Why not?” event which the NGO co-organized from 2008 to 2018.
Over 90 leading companies will attend, seeking to engage with Bulgarian professionals who are looking for career development back home. There will also be a varied seminar program with 12 sessions and over 20 speakers and leaders from the business, NGO and the public sectors. Besides the expected (yet important) HR consultations, job offers and on-the-spot interviews, this year the Career Hive will give companies the opportunity to remotely talk to candidates who are currently not in Bulgaria.
Career Hive 2019 also marks the beginning of Tuk-Tam’s efforts to encourage both companies and candidates alike to be a part of a more sustainable ecosystem. It is on a journey to becoming a zero-waste event, already reducing its impact on the environment.
For any additional information, don’t hesitate to contact the organizers directly at partners@tuk-tam.bg
Representatives of Sofia Municipality, French municipal institutions and mayors from French cities discussed opportunities for cooperation in the areas of economy, ecology, mobility, culture and improvement of the urban environment. The French delegation visited Bulgaria at the initiative of the National Federation of Local public enterprises (LPEs) in France.
“It is important for all of us to exchange good practices with colleagues from Europe. The challenges are similar, there are different solutions and ideas from which we can learn,” Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova said at the opening of the working meeting.
In recent years, there has been a great deal of interest from investors to our city. The very good standard of living in Sofia makes it an attractive destination,” said Vladimir Danailov, CEO of the Sofia Investment Agency. “French investments in Bulgaria for the period 1996-2018 amounted to 1.68 billion euros involving sectors such as manufacturing, finance, trade, agriculture, etc. Bulgarian exports to France exceed imports, with food, machine parts and clothing taking leading positions in exports,” he added.
The French delegation was presented with the activities of the main municipal agencies and organisations, the opportunities for investment in the capital city, policies in the area of the environment and improvement of air quality, the development of public transport and the improvement of the urban environment.
“The problems and tasks facing our cities are the same – developing the economy, culture and environmental challenges,” said Jean-Léonce Dupont, honorary president of LPEs.
The representatives of the organisation, which unites more than 1,300 entreprises and associations from all over the country, were interested in the methods of managing the municipal companies in Sofia, the development of the urban transport and the alternative ways of transport, as well as in the national policies in the area of protection of cultural monuments.
The topic of markets and the cultural activities that have been taking place there in recent years as a part of Sofia Municipality’s policy for developing new spaces for culture attracted a great interest as well.
The French guests who came from all major regions of the country also visited Sofia’s waste processing plant and the Sofia metro.
Sofia Investment Agency attended the European Cities Conference for Digitalisation organised by Vienna Municipality on 18th and 19th June. At the invitation of Vienna Municipality and together with other European еxperts, representatives of civil society and business our team took part in a discussion about what European city councils will look like in 2030.
Our Chief Executive, Mr. Vladimir Danailov presented the challenges, the experience gained and the results so far from Sofia’s participation in the European Commission’s Digital Cities Challenge Program. He also took part in a panel discussion on the topic E-government and European Municipalities.
The focus of the two-day conference was the issues arising from the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in urban services, eGovernment opportunities for city services, open data, and how digitalization could be used for society and citizens.
All about Digital Transformation of Sofia: V. Danailov & @InvestSofia at #ECC in #Vienna. #digitalization pic.twitter.com/TLHifKbG5q
— Eurocomm-PR Виена-София (@EurocommPR_SOF) June 19, 2019
On the first day of the conference, AI was examined as a determining factor for the future of city administrations and the tension between humans and technical innovations, social criteria, and democratic processes. Vienna presented two municipal initiatives – the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism and the program “Wien gibt Raum” (“Vienna provides space”) – a digital “One-Stop-Shop” that makes proceedings for the use of public space easier and faster for both citizens and enterprises.
The conference participants agreed that society must retain ultimate control over the development of AI and that human-centric rules for the data collection are needed. Europe could take on a pioneering role in this regard by its data protection basic regulation (DSGVO), for example in comparison with China or the USA.
The Digitalisation conference in Vienna was part of the annual series of events – the European conferences of cities (ECC), that are organised by Eurocomm PR on behalf of the city of Vienna. For the events, Vienna welcomes experts from the urban institutions from Central and Southeastern Europe. Our team is honored to have been invited to participate in the discussion on current issues of municipal administration and services of general interest.
SeeNews just published its new study titled Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem in Bulgaria, created in collaboration with the international innovation company Vangavis.
The Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem in Bulgaria is the first comprehensive report, covering the growing AI sector in Bulgaria.
Key points from the report:
- The growing popularity of AI technologies is creating a startup wave in the country.
- Retail, finance and media industries lead the way in terms of AI implementation in Bulgaria with over 30 local companies developing solutions for these sectors.
- A total of 47 companies develop or use AI in Bulgaria, of which 32 are startups and scaleups, while 15 are national and international corporations.
- The sector employed over 3,000 people; AI-related jobs account for 3% of the total developer job market in Bulgaria.
- AI developers swung to a combined net profit of 17.2 million euro ($19.4 million) in 2017, on revenue of 206.9 million euro.
According to the report, Bulgaria’s AI startup ecosystem is still at an early stage of its development but has gained a significant momentum in the past few years, as around one-third of all companies researched for the report were established in the 2016-2018 period.
The report is available for free download at https://reports.seenews.com.
Тhe new guidebook “Startup and innovation ecosystem in Sofia” is already available for download from the website of Invest Sofia. The document contains information for the entrepreneurship environment in the capital, the advantages for startups, the access to funding and the organisations in support of the business in the city.
“Startup and innovation ecosystem in Sofia” contains a list and direct links to:
- Co-working spaces
- Accelerators and incubators
- Governmental and municipal authorities, associations and foundations, networks and platforms in support of the entrepreneurs
- Venture capital funds, business angels and other funding organisations
- Startups in Sofia
- Bulgaria and Sofia in the global media and rankings
We believe that the provided information will be beneficial for the promotion of Sofia and Bulgaria as business destinations and it will be useful for all of the investors and entrepreneurs who would like to seed and develop their ideas in Sofia.
If you have additional questions about the published report or other data concerning the entrepreneurship environment in Sofia, please do not hesitate to reach us at the following address: contact@investsofia.com
By invitation of the organisers, Vladimir Danailov, the Executive Director of Sofia Investment Agency, participated in the European Cluster Conference which was held on 14th May in Bucharest, Romania. The invitation was extended to the Agency following a recommendation from the European Commission about the good performance of our team in managing Sofia’s participation as a city in the Digital Cities Challenge project.
The European Cluster Conference is organised by the European Commission and discusses current and future cluster policies and priorities in order to continue to support sustainable industrial modernisation and interregional cooperation. This year’s event was dedicated on topics such as digitalisation and skills gap, circular economy, shared value and social impact. Every year, representatives of local and European institutions, cluster organisations, small and medium-sized enterprises, etc., are involved in the conference.
Vladimir Danailov participated in the panel discussion Promoting Strategic Interregional Cooperation and talked about the experience gained in the Digital Cities Challenge programme that aims to build cooperation between cities on their way to the elaboration and implementation of their individual digitization programmes.
At the end of 2017, Sofia Investment Agency won a place for the capital in the mentoring initiative of the EU along with 42 European cities. By the management of the project during the last 18 months, our team have managed to establish international contacts , as well as create an image for Sofia as a city that is ready for the digital transformation of the business environment.
The Digital Transformation Strategy for Sofia, prepared under the European Commission’s mentorship, is in the process of being finalised and the official document will be completed by June 5, 2019, when the high-level Conference ‘Digital Cities Challenges: Strategy for European cities in the 21st century’ will be held in Brussels. The event will mark the work of all cities in the initiative, and the CEO, Mr. Vladimir Danailov will take part in the discussion ‘Success Stories for Market Creation through the Digital Cities Challenge’ that is part of the panel The Cities As Market Creators.
Sofia Investment Agency will participate in the programme of the Digitalisation Conference, that will be held on June 18-19, 2019, in Vienna, Austria. The participation is at the invitation of Vienna Municipality and Eurocomm PR – the office for international relations of Vienna.
On the second day of the conference, CEO Vladimir Danailov will take part in the panel discussion on the topic E-government and European Municipalities. Jaroslav Bulka, representative of the city council of Krakow, will also participate in the discussion in relation to the issues of digital transformation Another participant will be Robin Heilig, project manager at Sag’s Wien. He will talk about the application that allows reporting to the Municipality by Vienna citizens.
The Digitalisation conference is part of the annual series of events – the European conferences of cities (ECC), that are organised by Eurocomm PR on behalf of the city of Vienna. The conferences are currently dedicated to the issues concerning municipal administration and services of public interest. For the events, Vienna welcomes experts from the urban institutions from Central and Southeastern Europe.
Here you can find full agenda and speakers.
Due to a special invitation from the organisers of The Next Web festival (TNW Conference 2019) a team from the Invest Sofia took part in the annual StartupCity Summit during the conference on May 9-10 in Amsterdam.
Together with representatives of more than 150 of the world’s most active startup cities from around the world, Invest Sofia team participated in the work groups during the Summit, which is part of the festival’s program for a third consecutive year and is considered to be the place to share insights, and discuss the current and future role of local governments in creating flourishing tech ecosystems.
More than 250 representatives from the participating cities discussed how to overcome the tech challenges we face today, how to promote female entrepreneurship and women in tech, explore new ways to help startups go global, create international partnerships, and much more.
During the round tables, we shared good practices from Sofia, how many of the startup founders are women entrepreneurs and what percentage of the employees in the IT sector are women. In the panel Round Table 2: Creating a clear ecosystem identity and branding on a global scale, we discussed the experience of Sofia with representatives from cities such as Seoul, Rome, Helsinki, Madrid, Zurich, and others.
The invitation to our team and Sofia as a city, to join the meetings on May 9-10 in Amsterdam is considered to be a huge acknowledgment.
All the valuable insights, key learnings, and takeaways that were shared during the StartupCity Summit roundtables are available here.
Last week our team had a very inspirational delegation trip to Stockholm. In the course of two days, we had a series of meetings with key ecosystem stakeholders in the Swedish capital, organized by the Commercial and Economic Section to the Bulgarian Embassy in Stockholm.
We often travel to cities with a proven innovation track record and successful economic development initiatives to learn from others, connect, tell them and talk opportunities and business. Our interest in Sweden runs deep as many of Sofia-based ICT and tech companies have expressed interest in the Nordics. We felt very inspired by the Swedish culture of cooperation and came back with many takeaways and new ideas.
Here are some key facts about Stockholm that we kept hearing throughout our meetings:
– Stockholm is second only to the Silicon Valley in number of Unicorns per capita.
– 5 unicorns have been “born” in Stockholm to date: Spotify, King, Mojang, Klarna, and iZettle were all founded in Stockholm. Truecaller is another Stockholm based company about to reach a billion-dollar valuation.
– Stockholm is among the Top 10 cities with the most global headquarters of companies on the Forbes 2000 list.
– It is one of the most innovative cities in the world (WEF 2018).
– The Economist magazine named Sweden the best country in the world for working women.
– Greater Stockholm is home to Kista Science City – the leading ICT cluster in Europe, hosting the headquarters of global giants like Ericsson, as well as R&D labs and an IoT testbed.
– Stockholm has a long history in tech with ubiquitous dark fiber infrastructure, provided by the city of Stockholm and connecting every building in the city.
– Stockholm has the world’s first 5G bike, which serves as a rolling wireless LAN access point, HTTP server, data center, Bluetooth device and Internet of Things platform.
Some of Stockholm’s challenges include a deepening housing shortage and strain on public infrastructure, as Stockholm is of the fastest growing cities in Europe.
Stockholm built a strong brand, based on its strengths and calls itself “the Capital of Scandinavia” and is very vocal about its potential.
We were excited to see how different stakeholders in the city collaborate to create a common vision and ambition for Stockholm with most organizations in the city active in triple helix collaboration. Collaboration is in the Swedish DNA.
Swedish companies