10.02.2022 BDB presented the current funding programs for startups and SMEs in the beamUp lab program
In its second strategy meeting, experts from the Bulgarian Bank presented the wide range of financing opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises, start-ups, creative industries and the different mechanisms for this - soft lending, factoring, leasing, private equity.
"Our job here is to tell you about the different ways to raise capital, because one of the best tips on how to grow your business is: replace the word 'believe' with the word 'know'. To know how to change your strategy, what to focus on, how to get additional funding, how to increase your sales and how to manage your growing business", said Tsanko Arabadzhiev, Executive Director of Bulgarian Development Bank on the occasion of the opening.
Ivana Tsaneva showed the participants the potential for support of one of the most actively operating companies of the financial group - BDB Microfinance. With more than 10 years of experience and 600 small enterprises lent to, the company has implemented 15 SME support programmes and continues - in addition to its standard ones, with new products such as the Fund of Funds guarantee with 25% lower interest.
Almost one-sixth of BDB Microfinance's borrowers are startups because the development bank is one of the few that supports startups. Apart from credit, they can also benefit from products such as factoring - for deferred receivables from customers, which was presented by Teodora Terzieva - Spasova from BDB Factoring.
And to prove that it all works, the CEO of BDB Factoring presented the program for private equity investments in growing companies and successful examples of this. One of the most emblematic of them is International Power Supply /IPS/, whose portfolio and services are already known on 4 continents. Its managing director and owner Alexander Rangelov joined the meeting from Saudi Arabia, where its next big project is being implemented. He talked about how important it was for the company's growth that the shareholder is BDB Factoring and why the BDB Equity Fund is different from other private equity and venture capital funds. Its participation is a valuable reference, as in foreign countries it is assumed that the Bulgarian state has assessed the company's qualities in order to give it institutional support as an equity investment.
The beamUp lab programme is important for fostering the start-up ecosystem, as the first Bulgarian "unicorn" start-up with a valuation of more than USD 1 billion is predicted to be born this year or next. This is the expected result after the emergence and development of the Bulgarian ecosystem for more than a decade, as well as from the large surge of capital invested in European companies. The emergence of the first such Bulgarian company could be just the beginning for the development of this "rare species" in our latitudes.
