Bulpros officially opened a new technology Innovation Lab in its office in Business Park Sofia. The project aims at showcasing the variety of opportunities that digital innovations reveal for businesses and helping the companies in the processes of digital transformation.
Bulpros Innovation Lab includes demo stations that demonstrate product and services accelerating the digitization of business processes through digital and personalized user experience, digital collaboration tools, efficient customer communication based on Cisco and Microsoft solutions, virtual reality, AI developed by the company, and more.
The laboratory includes demo stations on Sales Effectiveness Dashboard and Sales AI, Professional Services Resource and Project Management, Team Collaboration, Boardroom Meetings, Secure Connectivity Platform (SCP) for manufacturing and Remote Expert based on Cisco technology, Accounts Payable Process Automation, Remote Digital Onboarding, In-person Digital Onboarding, Smart Assistants and Chatbots, Executive Workplace, iQ.Suite, Traffic and Security Analytics.
Bulpros Innovation Lab is a further strategic investment initiative after in 2016 the company received a Certificate for Investor Class A for a BGN 3.1 mln investment project in the area of IT and customer services.
Bulpros is a global IT and BPO services, solutions and products provider, focused on Cloud and Support Services, Industry Digitalization, Cyber Security, Digital Workspace, Technology Services, and Sales Services in the areas of Finance, Professional Services, Telecommunications, Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Retail.
The Sofia-based company was established in 2010 with a team of 5 employees. Currently, Bulpros operates in four cities in Bulgaria and has 19 offices in total, located in Europe and North America. The company has a team of more than 1200 experts and consultants. Through the years, it has been repeatedly recognised as one of the fastest growing IT companies in prestigious rankings such as Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 in CE and Technology Fast 500 in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Financial Times 1000 Europe, and McKinsey’s 2018 report The rise of Digital Challengers.
With an investment of €16.2 million, the Germany-based company Веhr-Неllа Тhеrmосоntrоl (ВНТС) extended its production plant in Sofia-Bojurishte Economic Zone. Thus, the leading automotive parts manufacturer doubles the production capacity of its factory in Bulgaria, which is also the biggest one among the locations where the company has production facilities. Along with the expansion, the company opens 250 new jobs and plans to hire another 400 people by 2022.
The expansion of BHTC Bulgaria covers 7,500 square meters and includes warehouses, technical areas, offices, and laboratories. At the end of 2018, ВНТС received a certificate for a priority investment project.
According to BHTC CEO Martin Nyland, BHTC’s annual production at the start of the company’s operations in Bulgaria in 2015 was 1 million units of automotive air conditioning systems, and now, four years later, it is 26 million. The new expansion will allow the manufacturing of 150,000 devices per week or over 7 million per year.
The German company Varengold Bank acquires 20 % of Klear, a Sofia-based peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform. The bank will support the lending platform with a BGN 1.5 million financial package, which comprises of equity and debt funding. The proceeds from the package will be used to expand Klear’s operations across Bulgaria and SEE.
This is Varengold Bank’s first investment in a P2P lending platform, based in the SEE region. The German bank opened its branch in Sofia in November 2018 with the mission to turn it into a major hub for its expansion in Southeast Europe.
Klear provides individuals with the opportunity to lend loans and generate a return on investment. Borrowers, on the other hand, are able to withdraw a loan easily at reasonable interest rates. The amount of the loans which active investors have granted through the lending platform so far is more than BGN 8 million.
Klear was founded with the mission to be fairer and more transparent in terms of interest rates and return on investment. It has been named The Best FinTech Startup in Bulgaria at the Central European Startup Awards for two consecutive years – in 2017 and 2018.
Varengold is headquartered in Hamburg and has branch offices in London and Sofia. Varengold specialises in Marketplace & Transaction Banking, a sector which has been dynamically developing worldwide.
Varengold is supporting FinTech-companies in Europe, mainly lending platforms enabling them to grow and gain relevance.
Further information is available in the official statement on the website of the P2P platform.
Robert Bosch, a subsidiary of Bosch Group, officially opened its new office in Sofia. The office is located at Sofia Tech Park, where, at the beginning of this year, the company started the establishment of a specialised automotive software engineering centre. Currently, the company employs nearly 100 people who are developing navigation and diagnostic software for the automotive industry.
“This development centre places Sofia and Bulgaria very well on the map of the automotive industry,” Vladimir Danailov, Chief Executive Officer of Sofia Investment Agency commented for ‘Business Start’ on Bloomberg TV Bulgaria. “The automotive industry in Bulgaria is younger compared to competitive countries like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland, but it already accounts for nearly 6 billion euros and there are about 220-250 companies in Bulgaria dealing with automotive related operations. By 2020 these 6 billion euros are expected to double. Companies like Robert Bosch that invest in R&D centres in our country make Sofia and Bulgaria more and more attractive business destination for the industry. “
The German Bosch Group operates in Bulgaria with two other companies – BSH Household Appliances Bulgaria and Bosch Software Innovations, where 170 IT engineers design, develop, and operate IoT software and system solutions in areas such as smart homes and buildings, smart cities, connected mobility, and connected manufacturing.
Bosch has been on the Bulgarian market for 25 years. The leading global technology and service provider employs 410,000 associates in almost every country in the world with sales and service partners, production units, research and development teams. According to preliminary data, in 2018 the company generated sales amounting to EUR 78.5 billion.
Bulgarian company Persy invests BGN 100 000 in a new state-of-the-art testing facility in Sofia for its computers and servers. With this investment, the company aims at doubling its capacity in the operations for the mandatory checkup of the machines placing them for sale.
Persy Ltd is a systems integrator and manufacturer of high-quality server and computer systems. The company has been on the market for over 20 years and has constantly been implementing leading ideas and technologies in its production. The company is certified with ISO 9001:2008 – a standard that guarantees excellent organisation of the marketing, manufacturing, and servicing processes.
The company produces its own brand for computer and server configurations “STINGER”. The systems allow a flexible approach to designing configurations suited to a wide variety of tasks ranging from standard applications to critical business operations, real-time data analysis, and artificial intelligence. PERSY Ltd is also known for supplying servers, workstations and disk arrays of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) with which it has been operating since 2012.
The Bulgarian division of the Irish data and analytical tools software company Experian moved its team to a new own office building in Sofia. The ninth-floor Space Tower is situated on Tsarigradsko Shose Blvd, right next to the Inter Expo Center metro station, thoroughly designed and build by Bulgarian subcontractors.
The new office building has an eco-certificate for low impact on the environment, 89 parking places, bike parks and EV charging station. The interior is designed in accordance with the daily work routine – conference halls, spaces for team or individual work, a library, game and sport corners, chill-out zones, etc.In Sofia, Experian Bulgaria currently employs more than 1 000 employees, the company reports. The team has doubled in the last two years.
The Bulgarian office serves 34 000 customers and is the largest centre of the company in Europe with 20% of the whole analytical capacity. In 2018, the income of the Bulgarian company is BGN 67,6 million.
Globally, the company has over 16,000 employees in 37 countries worldwide. Experian provides solutions for gathering, analysing and processing data and information arrays, and helps clients in credit risk management, fraud prevention, better targeting of marketing offers, automated decision-making, credit profiles management and prevention of identity theft.
The office in Bulgaria was established in 2004. At the end of May, the company received its next recognition with four statues from the annual awards for achievements in innovation, high technology and the outsourcing of the Bulgarian Outsourcing Association (BAA) and the Bulgarian Association of Software Companies (BASSCOM)
Experian took the prizes in the following categories: Technology Employer of the Year for 2019, Research and Development Center of the Year, Corporate Citizenship and for Technology Business building 2019 – namely, the new office Space Tower.
Първите колеги вече се преместиха в новия ни офис на бул. "Цариградско шосе" 86. Виж как изглежда той концептуално, а пък скоро ще ти споделим и още снимки от него. Очакваме те 😊
Публикувахте от Experian Bulgaria в Петък, 1 март 2019 г.
Sofia received the FrenchTech label and joined an international community of over 50 innovation and tech hubs around the world. The accreditation was awarded by the Ministry of French Economy with the support of the French-Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
French Tech is the collective name/brand that unites all participants in the French startup ecosystem, a government-backed movement created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs that help french startups grow in France and abroad. The organisation provides accreditation to French cities and French Tech Hubs abroad for their startup ecosystem and innovation potential. Stakeholders in FrenchTech are entrepreneurs, start-ups, investors, engineers, designers, developers, students, associations, bloggers, the media and public and private organisations focused on digital tech, medtech, biotech, cleantech, etc. start-ups.
A “French Tech Hub” provides a focal point for the French entrepreneurial ecosystem in the awarded regions to establish a presence there. The label is a great recognition for the Bulgarian capital. Sofia is now part of an international community alongside with San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Montreal, Sao Paulo, Cape Town, Barcelona, Milan, London, Berlin, Moscow, Israel, Dubai, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo.
Sofia Investment Agency was happy to represent Sofia Municipality in the event on the occasion of the official announcement of the accreditation of Sofia as a French Tech Hub organised by the French-Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and FrenchTech Sofia. CEO Vladimir Danailov joined the official opening with a congratulatory speech and an overview of the rapid development of Sofia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and collaboration with France alongside Adrien Bacchi, President of French Tech Sofia, Stéphane Delahaye, CCIFB President, and Vessela Todorova-Mosettig Director of CCIFB.
Looking forward to future collaboration between Sofia and the international FrenchTech community.
Image source: French–Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Founder Institute, the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, chose Sofia as its first office location outside the US. The Founder Institute (FI) already has programs in 180 cities across 65 countries worldwide and a network of local Programme Managers or Directors who take care for the execution of the acceleration sessions. Bulgaria also has its team of FI mentors, but the Sofia headquarters will be the first one that will actually recruit associates.
The local team will be responsible for identifying new FI locations across Europe and supporting the development of the new chapters, thus helping FI’s expansion in Europe.
More about the reason to choose Sofia please find in the interview (in Bulgarian) with founder Adeo Ressi, as well as in the article by move.bg on the occasion of the official opening of the so-called Sofia HQ.
Sofia Fall 2019 semester is now open
The mentors in the next FI semester in Sofia have already been announced at the website of the pre-seed accelerator and the Sofia Fall 2019 semester is now open for applications. The 14-week program will include weekly sessions where entrepreneurs will receive individual expert training and feedback, and then a series of challenging business-building assignments, office hours, group meetings and more.
The Final application deadline for the Sofia Fall 2019 semester is September 9, 2019. See the schedule and application link at https://fi.co/curriculum/sofia
Sofia-based IT startup Centroida has merged into ScaleFocus – one of the largest Bulgarian software companies focused on custom software solutions in the domains of Digital, Data and Cloud.
Centroida is a privately held start-up, founded in 2017. The company delivers solutions based on blockchain technologies, as well as smart contract development and auditing. It is also known for its work on computer vision based automation and NLP and has been named Tech Startup of the Year by Global Tech Summit for 2018. A large part of Centroida’s team of 40 people will join ScaleFocus, while a small team will continue working on the development of a new product in the area of computer vision under the brand notyf.ai, TrendingTopics reported.
With the merger, Centroida’s team will further augment the solutions portfolio of ScaleFocus with its expertise in Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Cloud. This is the second acquisition for the company for the last 6 months. In late 2018, ScaleFocus acquired the entire team of 120 professionals of the Bulgarian company Upnetix – one of the 50 worldwide certified Google development agencies. According to the official statement of the company, Since Upnetix’s successful integration, ScaleFocus has continued to pursue consolidation opportunities in the software sector in order to continually exceed the expectations of its customers when it comes to the application of the latest technologies and industry best practices.
ScaleFocus is a Sofia-based company, founded in 2012. Currently, the company operates with stand-alone offices in London, Munich, Zurich, and Washington DC. ScaleFocus has three more offices in Bulgaria – in Plovdiv, Varna, and Burgas. The company services medium and large-scale enterprise customers across North America and Western Europe, with a full-time staff of 500+ people.
Global business news agency Financial Times officially opened its office in Sofia. It is expected to employ 130 employees by the end of the year, to be responsible for engineering, development, design and economic analysis.
The fact that Sofia has been chosen by one of the most prestigious business media in the world means great trust and opportunities, Yordanka Fandakova, mayor of Sofia, said at the opening.
The event was attended by Cait O’Riordan, chief product and information officer at FT, who told us more about how Sofia has been chosen: We were looking at various possible locations for this office – in Asia, Europe and the UK before we chose Bulgaria. The long reputation of Sofia as a technology center, along with the development of the data industries, artificial intelligence, the renaissance of Sofia as the capital of technology on the Balkans – all these factors make your city an irresistible destination for such an investment. Our teams in Sofia are the engine in the main areas.
We continue to invest in Sofia: we plan to expand our business here by creating a new team that will work for FT’s specialized editions. We hoped that the city would provide us with talented people who would help us transform FT. Reality exceeded our expectations. Your dedication and energy are extremely exciting and I cannot wait to see what else we can achieve together.
FT has educational initiatives for high school students who are provided with free access to the publication. This is how we raise the next generation of FT employees and readers. In addition, we also find other ways to contribute to education by working with schools, clubs, universities, organizing events with students, Cait O’Riordan added.
According to FDi Intelligence, Sofia is among the most attractive locations for international investment in the next 2 years.
Sofia ranks 28th out of a total of 283 European regions included in the index for jobs involving intellectual activity. In 2018, Sofia was ranked 18th out of 400 world regions with excellent command of English, which also is important for attracting international companies to the capital, according to Sofia Municipality, as stated in the coverage of the event.
Switzerland-based provider of ICT solutions and services provider Also Holding announced the acquisition of Solytron Bulgaria.
Founded in Sofia in 1991, Solytron Bulgaria, with sales of €110 million and a market share of over 30%, is one of the leading IT distributors in Bulgaria. The company provides all of the components required to set up modern corporate ICT infrastructures – network and communication equipment, monitors and multimedia, computer systems and components, peripheral devices, power supply solutions, physical protection systems, accessories and multimedia, software.
According to the official statement, Solyton has steadily grown for the past six years and its market share of over 30% is a good starting position for Also from which to continue to benefit from Bulgaria’s economic development. The investment is in line with the aim of Also to expand operations in the region. On completion of the acquisition, the company will be represented in nearly all East European markets except Russia.
ALSO Holding AG (ALSN.SW) (Emmen/Switzerland) offers more than 550 vendors of hardware, software, and IT-services access to over 100 000 buyers, who can call a broad spectrum of other customized services in the logistics, finance, and IT services sectors, as well as traditional distribution services. The company provides development of complex IT landscapes, provision and maintenance of hardware and software, as well as return, reconditioning and remarketing of IT hardware. ALSO is represented in 18 European countries. It has generated total net sales of approximately 9.2 billion euros with around 4 000 employees in the fiscal year 2018.
Direct link to the media release.
UK-based game developer Creative Assembly announced the opening of its joint state-of-the-art office in Sofia with SEGA Games.
The new studio follows the acquisition of Creative Assembly Sofia in 2017 and the future transition of SEGA Europe’s QA services to Sofia.
The new place has 4 conference halls and 3 audio rooms equipped world-class and can house more than 150 people.
Two years ago, SEGA expanded the prominent UK developer with the acquisition of the Bulgarian Crytek Black Sea, later renamed Creative Assembly Sofia. Until June 2020, the Japanese game publisher is expected to relocate its quality assurance team from London to Sofia.
For more information, please see the official announcement.