Sofia Success Stories

The Sofia-based startup Releva, which helps online stores grow, raised 870,000 euros to accelerate operations and support the global strategy of the company. The financial round was led by the Fund of Funds’ fund manager  New Vision 3 Fund with participation by HR Capital AD, Verto Invest and private investors. Releva started in 2019 with a marketing automation SaaS solution designed to meet the goals of two local online stores. The analytics growth platform Releva analyzes consumer behavior through artificial intelligence and predicts the next purchase, then allows automatic sending of personalized multi-channel messages and ads via email, SMS, messengers, Facebook, Google and more. Releva is in the process of implementing various technologies that combine real-time big data analysis related to sales and marketing operations, payments, analysis and forecasting, etc., so as to provide retailers with access to customized tools to plan and execute their supply chains. By 2025 retail e-commerce sales worldwide is expected to reach 7.4 trillion dollars. Therefore, the company plans to invest the raised capital to expand to foreign markets.

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Chaos Group, a world leader in photorealistic 3D visualization, has announced the acquisition of the Danish company Cylindo – a platform for 3D computer visualization of commerce. The acquisition will enable the companies to further build on their vision of creating a leading end-to-end 3D visualization ecosystem with 3D, AR and VR content widely available to different sectors. Cylindo has over 160 employees in its offices in Boston (USA), Copenhagen (Denmark), Bitola and Skopje (Northern Macedonia). With the acquisition of Cylindo, the Chaos Group team in Sofia will manage nearlt 700 employees worldwide.

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The French company Athos IT Solutions and Services Ltd has opened a new global Security Operations Center in Sofia. The new center is designed to rapidly identify and limit the impact of security incidents for large organizations globally. Athos is a French multinational company and the European number one in cybersecurity, cloud, and high-performance computing. More than 300 new jobs will be created in the new Security Operations Center in Sofia.

For the investment, Invest Sofia presented Athos with a Green card for individual administrative services. Find out more details here.

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The European investment platform SeedBlink opened in Sofia its first office outside Romania. With this, the company complements its plans for expansion and accelerated growth. SeedBlink already has active partnerships within the Bulgarian ecosystem and the community of local investors. The team in Sofia will offer a range of investment instruments and tech startup opportunities and market access solutions to local investors, startups, and partners. Since its launch two years ago, the investment platform has supported tech companies with a capital raising of more than 45M Euros, including the Sofia-based aircraft company Dronamics. 

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The Bulgarian media platform The Recursive, focusing on emerging technology and start-up ecosystems in Southeast Europe, has successfully raised € 450,000. The platform will invest the funding to scale media coverage in Romania, Greece, and the Western Balkans and unlock new international audiences. A total of six funds and business angels from three countries from the region have participated the seed round. The Recursive started a little over a year ago with a team of two independent journalists. To date, the platform’s team consists of 10 people in Sofia, Bucharest and Skopje, and soon in Athens.

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Three Sofia-based companies received Golden Bull statuettes in the annual “Investor of the Year” Awards by the Bulgarian Investment Agency. The aerospace company “EnduroSat” received the award for Innovative Business Investment. Angry Building condominium management platform won the Startup of the Year prize, and Payhawk, the first Bulgarian unicorn, was awarded a special prize for innovation and growth.

Sofia companies were also recognised at the Innovation Awards 2022 by the French-Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry – (CCI France-Bulgarie). The P2P lending platform Klear received the award for Innovation in Investment. The other winners are: Pontica Solutions – a BPO and ITO company offering consulting and recruitment services, multilingual teams, as well as software development and maintenance; the foodObox app, that limits waste and food wastage; the electric car sharing company Spark and the Sofia business space Launchee – a place and virtual platform for digital and live events, training, workshops, and collaboration. You can read more about the awards in our publication from the event here.