Two Bulgarian AI Companies With New Growth Opportunities
The Bulgarian company for semantic software Ontotext, part of Sirma Group Holding AD, won funding in the amount of BGN 779 605 under the Innovation and Competitiveness Operational Program. The funding will be used to implement the ‘Іntеllіgеnt Mаtсhіng аnd Lіnkіng оf Orgаnіzаtіоn Dаtа frоm Dіffеrеnt Sоurсеѕ – СІМА’ project for a period of two years.
In order to implement the project, Ontotext will use technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and semantic modelling to link and integrate corporate data from different sources. The end product will be an in-depth tool for integrating heterogeneous data into market and business analyzes that are critical to various business operations such as customer relation management, attracting of new users, marketing campaigns, supply chain management, market analyses, study of competition, mergers and acquisitions, etc.
Ontotext was founded in 2000 as a technology lab at the Bulgarian software group Sirma Group Holding. In 2008, it spun off in an independent company and attracted funding from the venture capital fund NEVEQ. At the start of this year, the company announced a key partnership with the Canadian DrugBank, one of the leading databases in the field of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. In April, it was announced that NEVEQ had sold its 26.06% stake in Ontotext to Sirma Group Holding, the majority owner of Ontotext, for EUR 4.2 million.
Under the funded project, Ontotext plans to use its long-term expertise and experience in the field of cognitive data analysis, on which the Ontotext Platform had been created. The platform facilitates the analysis of data from heterogeneous sources and the integration of structured information and texts in knowledge graphs, which include information on billions of concepts and on the relations between them.
You can find more details on the specifics of the developed product in the official press release of the company here.
Another Bulgarian company, still in its start-up phase, will gain an opportunity to grow and develop in the field of artificial intelligence, machine self-learning and processing of natural language and algorithms. The newly established Connecto.ai was acquired by Leanplum, a company for mobile marketing, co-founded by the Bulgarian entrepreneur Momchil Kyurkchiev. Connecto.ai has a team of 10 employees in Sofia and offers automated online customer service through chat boards. By being part of Leanplum, Connecto.ai will expand its portfolio of online marketing solutions that the San Francisco-based company offers globally.
Following the acquisition, Connecto’s team is expected to grow to 40 people and to attract more specialists by the end of the year. The buyer Leanplum has more than 200 employees, with offices in Sofia and its headquarters in San Francisco, as well as in Amsterdam, New York and Singapore. The Leanplum investors include several funds from different countries, with a total interest of USD 98 million. The investment in the acquisition of Connecto in turn means a successful exit for the Bulgarian startup from a LAUNCHub Ventures investment only two years after its creation and less than a year after the funding of EUR 650 000 from the venture capital fund.
