Sofia Investment Agency joined the international start-up and entrepreneurship platform SCALE. Our team worked on the development of Sofia’s profile at SCALE, which aims to show the city’s potential as an entrepreneurial and start-up destination and the opportunities it could offer to entrepreneurs from Europe and all around the world.
SCALE (The Startup City Alliance Europe) is an online portal/platform, aiming to create a connected and transparent European city-to-city startup ecosystem. SCALE supports European startups wanting to scale not only within Europe but also to foreign markets from all around the world.
SCALE connects and fortifies the supportive structures that are already in place, bringing together European municipal governments, universities, corporates and fast growing startups (scale-ups). Currently SCALE unites 19 European startup organisations from 10 European cities: Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Helsinki, Milan, Munich, Paris, Porto, Rome and Vilnius. Sofia is the 11-th city to join the platform.
Each of the 11 cities has its own profile, providing detailed information on the development of the start-up and entrepreneurial ecosystem in each of the cities, including information about the different stakeholders, events, news, supporting organisations, etc., as well as valuable insights on how to access the market, establish and develop a startup, soft landing packages, etc.
In addition to an overview of the developing start-up ecosystem in the city, Sofia’s profile provides detailed information on the:
- procedures and requirements related to settling as a start-up founder/entrepreneur in Sofia (registration, taxes, insurance, housing, etc.)
- opportunities related to developing and expanding a start-up in Sofia
- access to markets, capital and funding
- access to talent
- getting support from the various start-up organisations and communities
- life in Sofia
You can learn more about the SCALE platform and check Sofia’s profile here.
On September 28-29 Sofia Event Center hosted the first Soft Unit Conference – an initiative of SoftUni, one of the largest and most respected educational institutions in Bulgaria, in partnership with FlyEvents. The event aimed to bring together people looking for personal and professional development in Bulgaria and the business and its needs.
The Conference was officially opened by the Mayor of Sofia Mrs.Yordanka Fandakova. “The investments in infrastructure are the investment for today, while the investments in education and innovations are the investment for the future. I believe that the professionals and the innovative young people are Sofia’s greatest capital” – said Mrs. Fandakova.
At the invitation of the organizers, Vladimir Danailov, CEO of Sofia Investment Agency, was moderator of “Destination Bulgaria” – the first panel of the conference program. The discussion was focused on the technological environment in Bulgaria, the future of the sector and why young people have good opportunities here.
The event was part of a campaign under the slogan “Stay Here Where Your Story Matters!”, targeting both young talents and experts looking for professional development in the field of software development, digital marketing, entrepreneurship, blockchain technology.
Participants in the panel discussions included Peter Lozanov from Symbol Media Group,
Viktor Shiller, president of R Cubed Group and entrepreneur in Bulgaria, who has lived in Sofia for the last 2 years, Andrey Arnaudov, chairman of the Movement for National Cause, and Andrey Bachvarov, managing director of BICA Services.
“Our role is to attract quality people and successful business in Sofia together with the business, and to improve the overall business climate in the capital”, Vladimir Danailov said at the opening of the discussion.
During the panel, Viktor Shiller shared that one of the first things he learned from his stay in Bulgaria was that people speak foreign languages and have a high technological culture.
“I am in the Silicon Valley of Europe. You outpace your rivals in an ‘unfair’ manner because you are well-prepared and have great skills, and the price at which you provide your skills is much lower”, said the president of R Cubed Group .
The Soft Unit Conference brought more than 1 400 young talents and professionals. More than 70 Bulgarian and international top speakers, entrepreneurs and experts shared their experience, advice and ideas in three different halls. The conference has the ambition of becoming an annual event
For another year, Sofia Investment Agency (SIA) will take part in the “Manager for a Day” initiative, organized for the 17th consecutive year by Junior Achievement Bulgaria. You may submit applications for the following senior management positions: Head of Investment Analysis Department and Chief Executive Officer. We will be happy to welcome you at our office in the center of Sofia (just a minute away from ‘Ivan Vazov’ National Theater) on October 30 and make you part of our dynamic daily program.
As a manager for a day you may expect:
- To support investment companies in Sofia to develop their investment projects by providing them with the necessary data on the economic environment in the capital, consulting them on specific actions needed to implement their projects, providing them with contact details of potential partners and attending joint meetings
- To work on data analysis of the business environment in Sofia and Bulgaria, to develop an appropriate strategy to promote investment in a particular sector, to work on events that promote local businesses abroad
- To organize and attend business meetings or events
- To have a notion on how to start a business in Sofia, which sectors are the most promising and get an idea on how to develop your own business in the capital
In order to become a member of our team on October 30, you need to fill out the registration form on the website of the initiative, including information on your education, experience, interests and strengths. After signing up, the platform will send you a password to access your account. Once you sign in, you can choose your preferred position and apply for the Head of Investment Analysis Department or the Chief Executive Officer position.
In 2017, SIA welcomed Peter Hristakiev, a 12th grade student at the Secondary School of Economics and Management “Elias Canetti” – Ruse, and Gergana Daskalova, a fourth-year student at UNWE, to spend a business day with us. Check out the interview of economy.bg, where Peter and Gergana shared their experience and Vladimir Danailov commented on the day they spent with the team of the Agency.
The team of Sofia Investment Agency will present the investment profile and investment opportunities in Sofia in the construction sector at the biggest real estate and investment forum in Europe – EXPO REAL 2018, to be held on October 8-10 in Munich. Sofia will have its own stand for the first time in the history of the exhibition. With this, the capital becomes the first city to present Bulgaria at an event at the Messe München and its adjacent International Congress Center, where dozens of international forums, among which EXPO REAL, are held all year round. Our country will take part in the exhibition and will be presented as a real estate investment destination at the initiative of the Association of Commercial Building Owners in Bulgaria (ACBO).
Our team will be involved as an institutional partner in the presentation of Bulgaria at EXPO REAL at the invitation of the ACBO. Thus, the Association aims to lay the foundations of a sustainable model of cooperation between institutions and businesses in the real estate sector. The Bulgarian delegation at the exhibition also includes the German-Bulgarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, as well as six leading companies in the construction sector in Bulgaria, which will present their projects: Expo 2000 Real Estate, Galaxy Investment Group, Real Estates BG, Business Park Sofia, East Ring Logistic Park and Harmony Group.
Sofia Investment Agency will present up-to-date information on the offices, commercial areas, logistics and industrial areas segments to potential investors, as well as the overall economic and investment environment in the city.
Especially for the presentation of Sofia, we have prepared a promotional video, showing the overall look of the city and its potential in the construction sector. We would like to express our gratitude to Forton / Cushman & Wakefield, the Association of Commercial Building Owners in Bulgaria and the Institute for Market Economics, as well as the Bulgarian companies at the exhibition for their participation and their help for the video.
We would also like to thank MaxMedia studio for the beautiful drone views of Sofia and the entire montage and production of the video. The video has panoramic views over the city and some of the key locations in the capital, including business areas and new office centers, industrial zones, shopping centers, lively public places, parks, main thoroughfares and Sofia metro.
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EXPO REAL is Europe’s
The third workshop for the Digital Cities Challenge project was held on September 10th at the Microsoft Innovation Center at Sofia Tech Park.
The previous two workshops were focused on creating a community of stakeholders, implementing an “as is” analysis and defining the Vision and Ambition for digitalization of Sofia.
This one was the first workshop dedicated to strategy formulation.
The workshop gathered local stakeholders from the ICT sector, the start-up community, utility companies and the local government with the goal to review and validate the marked Operational Objectives and to identify potential actions and KPIs for the digitalization of the city in the areas of Government, Utilities, Transport and Start-up Ecosystem into a single strategy document.
The Digital Cities Challenge is an initiative of coaching and facilitation by the European Commission to help European cities develop and implement policies that focus on smart, sustainable growth through the uptake of advanced technologies by local businesses.
The aim of the Challenge is to offer high-level advisory services to 15 European cities and help them build up innovation ecosystems through the deployment of advanced tech. Due to the high interest showcased by the 92 applications from cities all over Europe, the initiative has increased its outreach to include 21 Fellow cities that have joined on their own resources and 6 Mentor cities that inspire and share best practices with the group. Together they create a network of over 40 cities that participate in the initiative.
Sofia was among the first 7 cities approved to take part in the implementation of the project and to develop its own strategy for digitization. Sofia’s participation is managed by the Sofia Investment Agency.
The mission of the digital transformation strategy of Sofia is to define a series of actions strengthening the business ecosystem of the ICT in Sofia in order:
(a) to develop and offer ICT solutions for the digital transformation of the city;
(b) to identify and open markets for digital products and services, local, national or global, and facilitate the access to these markets; and
(c) to support the local system of innovation for enabling the Digital Transformation.
Sofia Investment Agency will present the current project results on the next Academy Seminar that will gather representatives of all the 43 participating cities in Thessaloniki on October 17th and 18th.
The Academy Seminar in October will kick-start the next steps
Two years ago, when Sofia Investment Agency started work, we identified 9 priority sectors for the city. Tourism was naturally one of them.
Our team is glad to present the new Sofia Tourism and Air Transport Report 2018 we’ve been working on for the past two months. In short, for another year in a row, we are in the midst of an unprecedented tourism boom that shows no signs of slowing down. It is visible on the streets and in coffee shops and it did not finish with summer’s end.
The new report has 50 pages and covers a wide range of topics such as the number of tourists by country of origin and reason for visit, the accommodation capacity, traffic at Sofia Airport, opportunities for development of Congress and MICE tourism in the city and trends in the industry.
Here are some of the key points from the report:
- In the last several years Sofia became a much more popular and preferred tourist destination. The city has been
experiencing a stable increase in tourism – approximately 13% growth in the number of tourists and 15% in the number of nights spent both in 2016 and 2017. - 65% of all Sofia visitors came from abroad, and the top source countries were Italy, Great Britain, Germany, and Greece.
- The increase in number of foreign tourists in Sofia in 2017 alone was 18%.
- The highest increase of visitors in 2017 was recorded among the tourists from the Netherlands (+57%), Spain (+51%), Ireland (+ 51%), China (+48%), and Belgium (+40%).
- Sofia Airport launched 42 new routes between 2015-2018, including new direct flights to such destinations as Baku, Nice, Malaga, etc.
- The number of passengers at the airport increased by the record 30.3% in 2017 to a total of 6 490 096. Over
58% of the passengers serviced at the Airport in 2017 flew a low-cost airline. - As of the spring of 2018, there were around 4 611 four- and five-star hotel rooms and more than 10 five-star hotels in Sofia, some of which belong to the biggest hotel brands worldwide. The number of 4- and 5-star hotel rooms in the city is expected to double by 2021 due to several big international hotel chains entering the market.
- Bulgaria’s Presidency of the Council of the EU was the largest congress event in the history of Sofia and a great opportunity for the
The number of training centers in Sofia that develop new technology skills programs for children at primary school age are increasing. Sofia offers a variety of courses and activities for preschoolers, not only for programming but also in a variety of fields such as 3D modeling, robotics, design, gaming, introduction to engineering.
Here are some of the training programs available in the capital which can help children get acquainted with technology from an early age and find the areas of knowledge they are interested in.
International computer academy IT STEP
IT STEP organizes IT classes for children aged 8-15 in the fields of robotics, game development, web design, photo lab and computer games design. Children are given a real opportunity to turn their hobby or passion into a future profession. The Academy has 20 years of experience and is currently the fastest growing private educational institution with 58 branches in 18 countries across 5 continents. IT STEP is one of Cisco’s best authorized learning centers, and one of the most prestigious in CIS for Autodesk Maya. You can learn more about the Small Computer Academy herе.
TechnoMagicLand in Sofia Tech Park
The Science and Technology Center TechnoMagicLand launched its intensive courses for children only a few weeks after its opening in Sofia Tech Park. Young students can develop in fields such as engineering, informatics, science and technology. The courses include Introduction to Techniques for Children, Introduction to Engineering for Children, etc. The programs are suitable for kids aged 8 – 11 and include work with specialized software, which allows the children to operate robots, which they assemble and program by themselves. Kids can also graphic models and objects with the specialized software for computer 3D modeling for children SOLIDWORKS Apps for Kids, get an introduction to Android, etc. More information about the courses is available in the Courses section at the TechnoMagicLand website and on the Facebook page of the center.
Space Academy
Space Academy organizes innovative space programs for kids aged 8-12. The courses help children develop skills and interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM disciplines) and prepare them to be leaders of the future by thoroughly studying space sciences. Programs include subjects as Astronomy and Astrophysics, Astronautics and Space Engineering, Rocket modeling. Kids work with attractive scale models and assemble their own models by themselves. Detailed information is available here.
Uni4kids
University for
In July, Sofia Investment Agency organized the Paths of Digital Transformation Workshop as part of the European Commission’s Digital Cities Challenge project. The workshop is part of Sofia’s participation in the Digital Cities Challenge project /Phase 2: Formulation of a Strategy for the Digital Transformation and Industrial Modernization of Sofia.
The workshop gathered local government and business representatives, as well as representatives from utility companies, ICT companies, and the academia. We discussed the transformation paths and actions for digital transformation in government (local authorities and public administration), utilities (energy, water, waste), transportation and the start-up ecosystem.
The next workshop under the DCC project/Phase 2 will be held in September and will be devoted to the roadmap development and the identification of preliminary investment priorities for Sofia’s digital transformation. Again, the workshop will bring together ICT companies and providers of digital services, stakeholders from non-digital sectors 
using digital services, and stakeholders from the innovation ecosystem (funding organisations, tech parks, incubators and accelerators, technology consultants) who will discuss the ways of facilitating the adoption of new services by digital and non-digital sectors.
The workshop is open for new participants as well. If you want to learn more about the project, please contact Nadia Soultanova, Head of ‘Investment and Business Development’ at Sofia Investment Agency by email: nadia.soultanova@investsofia.com.
To learn more about the work done so far, please review the results from Phase 1 of the project, as well as the Assessment report for the city of Sofia prepared during this first stage of the project.
For the second year in a row Sofia Investment Agency hosted SOFIA’s PLACE in the exhibition area of Webit.Festival Europe 2018. SOFIA’s PLACE welcomed hundreds of guests with a prepared program, presentations and opportunities for business meetings with foreign and Bulgarian partners.
SOFIA’s PLACE agenda has been jointly implemented by Sofia Tourism Administration, Sofia Development Association, the Green Sofia project and the Municipal Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. We are extremely grateful to all participants in the presentations – to our colleagues from Vienna and Gothenburg, who shared their valuable business experience and ideas for management of urban environment, business and investments; to the organizations that presented ideas for working communication between institutions and citizens and practices that turn Sofia and its citizens into a smart city and society; and to all Sofia entrepreneurs who presented the vitality and ambition for growth of the business eco-system in Sofia, by introducing the products and services they develop with their teams in the capital.
You can learn more about the participants in the program of SOFIA’s PLACE, download some of their presentations from the links below and benefit from the ideas and contacts that the participants shared at Webit.Festival Europe 2018.
Vienna Business Agency, Austria
Vienna business agency is part of the general administration of the Austrian capital.
The agency offers a business program to attract investors and supports companies that want to open offices in Vienna. The presentation Vienna: A great place to live and do business is available for download here.
Business Region Göteborg – ICT and Connect Sverige, Sweden
Business Region Göteborg is an organization engaged in the development of the second largest city in Sweden as well as 13 municipalities in the region. The presentation Innovative Growth – Meeting the sustainability challenges with a diversified approach is available here. It also includes a presentation of Connect Sverige, a non-profit organization, funded by local government and industry, which connects growing companies with capital and key skills and contacts. The Connect Sverige network of more than 30 000 highly qualified specialists and over 500 angel investors covers all of Sweden. Connect works hard to develop its investment network at regional, national and international level.
Municipal Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises
The Municipal Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises is a dedicated
Mrs. Sabine Ohler, head of International Business Development, and Mr. Nikolay Rodimov, regional manager of Vienna Business Agency, visited Sofia on June 25-27 at the invitation of Sofia Investment Agency. They took part in Meet Vienna Business Agency: Opportunities for Bulgarian Companies, an open meeting held on June 25 with Sofia entrepreneurs. In addition, they also attended and participated in the presentations on June 26-27 in the exhibition area of Sofia at Webit.Festival Europe 2018. The presentations at the meetings covered topics on Vienna’s business environment, good examples of the city’s management and opportunities that Sofia entrepreneurs can benefit from in case of interest in business start in Vienna and Austria.
The meeting Meet Vienna Business Agency: Opportunities for Bulgarian companies, organized by our team with the support of Eurocomm-PR, gathered more than 60 Sofia-based companies interested in business in Vienna. Mrs. Sabine Ohler presented the city’s policy in support of private business, priority industries and incentives which startups can benefit from in the Austrian capital.
In Vienna, only in 2017 a total of 190 companies started business, thus opening 1000 new jobs and bringing investments of over half million euro in the city. The Austrian capital is attractive to foreign investors not only due to its favorable geographic location in the heart of Europe but also because Vienna is an international center for organizations all over the world, home to 14 international schools and over 1500 research and development organizations. International companies feel good in this environment and have access to numerous talents among more than 200 000 students from all over the world.
Foreign investors within the Information and Telecommunication Technologies sector are interested in Vienna as the city is home to both large international companies and numerous startups with small teams of less than 10 people. Another priority sector with strong traditions is the biotechnology sector and the so-called life sciences. A number of co-working spaces and business incubators offer startup support packages for foreign entrepreneurs willing to set up business in Vienna. In addition to grants, startups in certain sectors also benefit from various tax reliefs.
It was very important to the businesses in Sofia, which show increasing interest in partnerships in Vienna, to find out what incentives the city offers for Sofia companies. A cooperation agreement between the two cities will allow more Austrian businesses to access more easily and with more
The Digital Transition partnership Programme was presented at SOFIA’s PLACE in the exhibition area of Webit.Festival Europe 2018. The partnership is part of the EU initiative Urban agenda for the EU. Sofia was selected as a co-coordinator of the partnership at the end of 2016 with Estonia and Oulu, Finland.
The project’s coordinators Veronika Manova and Mika Rantakokko presented the objectives of the program – to identify and implement new measures and solutions for improving the legislation in Europe, to finance urban policies and training programs to facilitate digital transition in Europe.
The European administrations, together with society and businesses, should envisage in the action plan of the program activities to provide better public services to citizens, promote innovation and create new business opportunities for growth for the European cities.
The team of Sofia Investment Agency initiated the presentation of the project at Webit 2018 because of the importance of its goals for the future of cities, society and business, as well as its similarities with the goals of Digital Cities Challenge (DCC), another project of the European Commission which Sofia will take part in. The DCC initiative aims to support the 15 European cities in initiatives for digital transformation of the urban environment and society. The implementation of the project is coordinated by a team of Sofia Investment Agency. Joint working meetings with the Digital Transition team are scheduled in July and September, as stakeholders in both projects are the institutions, the academic community and the private business. We believe that their guidelines and cooperation in the initiatives will help to identify specific implementation projects that are beneficial to the goals of both programs.
The development of the action plan for the partnership on Digital Transition is in its final stage. An introduction to the draft action plan is available here and the presentation of the coordinators Veronika Manova and Mika Rantakokko at Webit 2018 – here.
You can read more about the Digital Transition partnership on the EU’s website for the program: https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/digital-transition
Introduction to the Draft Action Plan of the Partnership on Digital Transition is available here.
Locally, the initiative is coordinated by Sofia Development Association – http://www.sofia-da.eu
The Innovative Enterprise Week Sofia 2018 conference took place in Sofia Tech Park on June 14-15.
The event was organized by the European Commission, the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of Europe and the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, in association with the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Investment Fund (EIF) and representatives of the Bulgarian entrepreneurial ecosystem, supported by Tech Tour Global.
The topic of the conference was ‘Financial Instruments Fostering Research and Innovation’, and its main aim was to raise the levels of awareness regarding the role of the various European financial instruments, programmes, facilities and measures, such as Innovfin, COSME, the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the European Innovation Council, as well as many other regional, national and local instruments, in fostering research and innovation in the EU and the world. The main focus of the discussion was on the potential of startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for growth and development.
More than 300 key participants from different sectors and backgrounds, such as policy-makers, financial intermediaries, entrepreneurs, representatives of the research, innovation and the business community, came together to discuss the current bottlenecks, opportunities, and the further needs of the financial instruments fostering research and innovation in Bulgaria, the EU region and the world.
Mr. Vladimir Danailov, CEO of Sofia Investment Agency, was invited as an expert in one of the parallel interactive workshops dedicated to the ways in which innovators can scale-up in order to compete internationally. (Co-panelists of Mr. Danailov were Mr. Christian Dubarry from BPI France, and Mr. Milen Vrabevski, owner of Comac Medical. Chair of the panel was Prof. Dr. Marco Cantamessa from the Polytechnic University of Turin, and rapporteur was Mr. Antonio Carbone from the Agency for the Promotion of European Research.)
During the panel called ‘Scale: How Can We Offer Innovators Continental Scale to Compete at a Global Level?’ Mr. Danailov shared his observations and recommendations regarding the role of financial instruments in the development of the business environment in Bulgaria. ‘Bulgarian SMEs and startups have achieved lots of progress in the last 11 years, since Bulgaria became part of the EU, especially in terms of improving their abilities, increasing their credibility, diversifying their products, making use of various financial instruments, and slowly but steadily expanding internationally. Although in the past Bulgaria was