Bulgaria is an evolving fintech hub with nearly 70 companies operating in this domain. It is the most vibrant fintech hub that attracts many fintech ventures, especially startups from both local and international markets with developer teams.
The growth of the fintech arena in Bulgaria has been quite rapid and these companies achieved revenue of €212 million. As per reports, in 2019, the growth of operating revenues is expected to surpass €300 million. And, Gergana Stoitchkova, director of the Bulgarian Fintech Association, all these companies mentioned below are actively involved in the fintech ecosystem. This fintech association was established back in early 2018 to unify the sector.
Having said that, check out the list of 9 most innovative fintech startups based in Sofia in 2019 as sourced from Dealroom from here.
Payhawk
Founders: Boyko Karadzhov, Hristo Borisov
Total Funding: €500k
Valuation: €2 million – €3 million
Founded year: 2018
Why its hot: Payhawk lets you simplify your spends and manage expenses with smart Visa cards. It is a business spending solution for those travelling abroad. It also lets you count the amount you are spending with smart Visa cards and powerful apps. With Payhawk, users can use features such as set spending limits, control cash withdrawals, prevent card sharing, and more.
Pinot Trading
Management: Kristian Dimitrov, Atanas Michailov (Since 2007)
Founded year: 2003
Why its hot: Pinot Trading was originally established in 2003 in Bulgaria by the Dimitrov family as a distribution business for household goods and manufacturing of metal machinery for food and perfumery industries. In 2007, the company was taken over by the current management, who saw the opportunity to exploit the price fluctuations and stock availability gaps in the EU electronics distribution market.
Trade interceptor
CEO: Rodolfo Festa Bianchet
Founded year: 2005
Why its hot: Sofia-based Trade Interceptor is one of the fastest-growing mobile technology firms. Back in 2017, ThinkMarkets, a leading retail FX and CFD broker, has acquired Trade Interceptor. Through the acquisition, ThinkMarkets will connect its trading infrastructure to Trade Interceptor thus offering users the ability to analyse and trade from the same platform.
Klear
Founders: Lukasz Lukaszewski, Loic Le Pichoux, Nikolay Stanev
Total Funding: €1.6 million
Valuation: €400k – €600k
Founded year: 2015
Why its hot: Klear is a unique combination of peer-to-peer lending platform. It provides users with the opportunity to lend money and generate investment or borrow easily and quickly at a reasonable interest rate. Back in September this year, the P2P lending platform Klear hit the milestone of 1000 credits.
Phyre
Founders: Ivo Gueorguiev, Konstantin Djelebov, Valeri Valtchev
Founded year: 2015
Why its hot: Phyre is a mobile app, which turns your phone into a wallet. You can use the Phyre app to easily shop anywhere with a POS and online. At the same time, you can store all of your loyalty cards in the app and use them directly from your phone. It also allows you to send and receive money instantly and with no fees to any app user.
Reloyalty
Founders: Ivo Vasilev, Miro Bekyarov
Total Funding: €800k
Valuation: €4 million – €5 million
Founded year: 2018
Why its hot: Reloyalty was founded with the objective to help businesses identify their passionate customers and help them. The loyalty programs these days use shallow conditions to find out loyal customers. It is the first company to develop a dynamic and accurate score to measure the evolving relationship between a customer and business. Everything is done on existing bank cards via open banking / PSD2 and they can predict the loyalty relations between customers and businesses via the actual transactional data.
BACB Plus
Management: Vasil Simov, Ilian Georgiev
Founded year: 1995
Why its hot: BACB Plus is the first virtual bank in Bulgaria. Bulgarian-American Credit Bank (BACB) was granted full banking license lending in 1998, so that it can provide a large number of banking services except for services related to credit cards, investment, and safe deposit boxes. The company offers value, security, convenience, and mobility.
Cash Credit
Founders: Fred Louwerens, Georgi Krumov
Total Funding: €22.7 million
Founded year: 2011
Why its hot: Cash Credit is a high-tech non-banking financial institution offering lightning-fast micro-credit only with an ID card within just six minutes. It is touted to be the fastest approval currently in the credit market in Bulgaria. It ensures to offer trust, transparency, sustainability, and efficiency.
Fadata
Founders: Charles Taylor (post-acquisition)
Valuation: €22 million
Founded year: 1990
Why its hot: Fadata, which is acquired by Riverside Company help insurers and contribute successfully to the security and well-being of their customers. Fadata has evolved to become a major service provider of software solutions to insurers across four regions. This helps you sustain innovation, engage customers effectively and stay competitive in a rapidly changing world.
Main image picture credits: Fadata
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