ABOUT CHRISGrowth engineer @ Imagga
board member @ StartUP Foundation
blogger, Apple fan
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#1
thriving startup community
StartUP Conference with over 1000 of attendance
over 200 startups funded by 6 local VCs
betahaus | sofia - full to the brim
Silicon Drinkabouts every week
Emerging Startup Ecosystem
#2
LAUNCHub & 11 - EUR 20M for acceleration & seed
Sofia is 3rd by # of accelerated companies (not seed and later stage)
attracting tech talent from neighboring countries - Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia
Access to Financing
#3 #3rd worldwide in number of certified IT professionals per capita
#1 in EU in number of certified IT professionals
#2 in EU and #5 worldwide among the most attractive outsourcing destinations
60% of Startup Weekend participants are developers
Abundance of Tech Talent
#4 7th in the world on number of gold medals (22) won at International Informatics Olympiad (Germany - 14) 3rd in the World in
well experienced software engineers and project managers, working in multinationals
vibrant dev community with lots of events and support groups
Geeks Love it Here
#5 24.6% of the population hold university degree
35 000 students with IT related degree a year
50% of the universities in BG offer computer related programs
Telerik Academy & Soft University - tailored dev education
Education First
#6 HP GDS - 4100 employees
IBM - 530
SAP - 650
Skrill (MoneyBookers) - 400
VMware - 500
Telerik - 700
Amazon, Nemetschek, Johnson Controls, Software AG, Experian
Big Names are Here, Too
#7 Product Hunt - partly developed in Sofia
SoundCloud - did have dev office in Sofia, now in Berlin
Uber - over 40 developers so far
BG examples - Telerik, Chaos Group (V-ray), Flipps, Imperia Online, SX Software, Imagga
Trendy Startups, YEAH
#8 Legal Framework harmonized with EU legislation
Lowest corporate rates in EU:
- 10% flat rate on taxable profit
- lowest social security payments in EU
- accountants can do miracles!!!
Legal Framework & Taxes
#9 2 hours flight to Berlin, Prague, Vienna
Fast and cheep Internet -broadband download speed - ~34Mbit/s
Lowest office rent in EU
Low cost of living - Restaurant and taxi prices the lowest in EU
Well Connected and Affordable
#10 Culture close to the principals and values of Western Europe
Almost the same time zone - 1 hour difference Germany, 2 - London
Willingness to work overtime - most companies rarely pay overtime Work from home/freelancing is widely accepted
Cultural & Time Adjustments
#11 45.5% of the population speaks at least one foreign language
English, German - most popular
Over 25 different languages spoken
Unique specialized language schools
We speak languages
Bulgaria is not big enough for most of the startup ideas
There’s bigger world with much more opportunities
Need to know the world to serve it - travel, learn languages
Different work skills are required - sales, presentation skills, etc.
Think BIG, your big is not big enough, trust me
Do it NOW!
Concur the World