bulgarian startup ecosystem

STARTUP IN BULGARIAthe founder’s perspective

growth engineer Imagga

board member StartUP Foundation

3

Objects & Concepts

strawberry

food

fresh

fruit

healthy

closeup

dessert

organic

nutrition

CHALLENGES#bulgaria #startupbg

corrupted & unsupportive government

irrelevant university programs

lack of heroes and big exits

far from major startup hubs

lack of business and sales skills

not enough money for startups

SOME ADVANTAGES#bulgaria #startupbg

Pravetz computers

tech savvy young people

hacker culture

low cost of living

small market

* http://alphadesigner.com/mapping-stereotypes/

friendly to foreign people

THE STARTUP ECOSYSTEM#bulgaria #startupbg

risk tolerance

techskills

capitalavailability

startup culture

rolemodels

govsupport

visible success

RISK TOLERANCE

risk tolerance

fail once, fail for life

risk tolerance

idea sharing

risk tolerance

53% of young peple over 25 live with parents

TECH SKILLS

3rd worldwide & 1st in EU in number of certified IT professionals per capita

#2 in EU and #5 worldwide among the most attractive outsourcing destinations

60% of Startup Weekend participants are developers

tech skills

tech skills

Telerik Academy

tech skills

programming for kids in partnership with CoderDojo

entirely sponsored and developed by Telerik

9 000+ developers trained on site since 2009

30 000+ via online resources

tech skills

Software University

tech skills

close cooperation with software industry

matching students with companies

30 000 taken a course since 2014

1000 developers graduate a year

1- 3 years programs

all courses under CC

tech skills

IT Talents Training Camp

tech skills

85% of the graduates find work right after they graduate

matching students with companies

250 graduate started working as programers since 2013

partnership with 60 software companies

tech skills

Big Multinational Companies

tech skills

Unicorns are here too

CAPITAL AVAILABILITY

capital avaliability

EUR 11M fund

invested in 116 startups everage size of investment EUR 95 000

EUR 4,5M additional investment

capital avaliability

EUR 8M fund

invested in 63 startups

EUR 12M total funding attracted

capital avaliability

EUR 46M under management

NEVEQ I & II

invested in 22 startups

42% in enterprise software

32% in fintech

26% in Internet related

3 successful exits

capital avaliability

Business Angels

STARTUP CULTURE

startup culture

Support Organizations

startup culture

startup culture

Women in Tech

startup culture

Startup Weekend Bulgaria

startup culture

DigitalK Conference

startup culture

CowOrKing Space

ROLE MODELS

role models

Diaspora at SV

role models

Attracting tallent from abroad

role models

Local Heros

role models

Local Heros

GOV SUPPORT

gov support

Lowest corporate rates in EU:

- 10% flat rate on taxable profit

- lowest social security payments in EU

- cap of the monthly social security base for 2016 - EUR1300

VISIBLE SUCCESS

visible success

biggest exit

visible success

bootstrapped

visible success

world leader - artificial climbing walls

visible success

visible success

visible success

@chrisgeorgiev