Acronis Enters the Bulgarian Market after the Acquisition of T-Soft
The Singapore-based Acronis, an international leader in cyber security and hybrid cloud solutions, has established its presence in Sofia following the acquisition of the Bulgarian company T-Soft. The two companies have been successfully collaborating since 2012, which motivated Acronis to further explore the investment opportunities for the establishment of its own unit of the company in Sofia.
Acronis has the ambition to gradually create one of the largest engineering offices in the technology sector in Bulgaria. The company starts operations with T-Soft’s team of 25 specialists and plans to expand its staff to 300 people in the next three years. The planned investment in the amount of EUR 43 million aims to develop a key R&D center in Europe with activities that are fully focused on cyber security. The company has already announced 20 job openings for qualified personnel in Sofia.
Why Sofia
The establishment of an R&D center in Sofia is part of Acronis’ plans to gain stable positions in Europe. After exploring a number of countries in the region for three years, including Poland, Romania, Serbia, etc., the team of Acronis chose Bulgaria due to the firm’s successful long-term partnership with T-Soft, the presence of qualified experts and the country’s membership in the European Union.
We are happy that the team of the Investment Analysis Department of Sofia Investment Agency was a partner in the process of establishing the Acronis Development Center in Sofia. The Sofia-based T-Soft contacted us for assistance in the process of negotiating the acquisition of the company. By the end of the establishment of Acronis we have provided the following services:
- We presented the investment opportunities and business climate in Sofia, the procedures for registering a company, opening a bank account with a foreign passport, etc. to the management team of Acronis
- We provided support in the establishment of key contacts in different fields to ensure the successful start of the expansion of the center in Sofia
- We gave a presentation to the employees of Acronis on the working and living conditions in Bulgaria and Sofia, the living conditions for expatriates and their families, the maternity leave conditions, childcare conditions, the national regulations for working overtime, recruitment of third country employees, etc.
‘Acronis needs more engineers to develop innovative technologies to meet the growing need for cyber security. We are increasing our presence in Europe as part of our growth strategy on the continent and Sofia was a logical step for us. Here we already had a local partner with excellent engineers. We will continue to develop the successful work of the team here in order to expand our research and development operations in Europe. Sofia is a great place to access the numerous talented engineers in Europe’ – said Sergei Belousov, founder and CEO of Acronis, in the official press release of the company.
Acronis’ operatitons in Sofia will continue to be managed by Plamen Toshev, current CEO of the acquired T-Soft. Today Acronis has more than 5 million users and 500 000 corporate customers in over 150 countries. Тhe largest markets for the company‘s products and services are Japan, the German-speaking countries and the United States.
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Devexperts Sets up a Development Center in Sofia
The Munich-based financial software company Devexperts also announced the opening of its development center in Sofia at the end of August. The company plans to build a team of 80 people over the next two years and has already rented a floor of Vertigo Business Towers in Sofia.
The company is working on software solutions in the field of capital markets. Its customers include banks, commodity exchanges, cryptographic exchanges, brokers and financial asset management companies. Devexperts has offices in Munich, Antalya and Porto. For its new development center Bulgaria has competed with Hungary and the Czech Republic. Sofia has been chosen for its qualified software specialists, better business conditions and excellent technological infrastructure.
Devexperts will appoint a team of specialists in ultra-fast algorithms for trading, big data processing, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. The company also plans to invest in educational programs at local universities and in the development of internship programs.
Devexperts was founded in 2002 and has more than 400 employees around the world. The company has large units in Chicago, New York, London, Tokyo, Istanbul and Shanghai. Its products include online trading platforms, risk management tools and real-time data processing and analysis, as well as AI chat bots for brokers and investment managers. Devexperts provides 24x7x365 support and monitoring for its products and services worldwide.
