Bulgarian start-up on the final of prestigious pre-accelerator competition

Bulgarian start-up is among the finalists in a prestigious European programme

Bulgarian start-up on the final of prestigious pre-accelerator competition in Europe, selected among 300 participants.

OMNIO Technologies is one of the selected finalists and the only Bulgarian start-ups selected in the competition for the pre-accelerator programme of EIT Digital – a pan-European network with a Bulgarian partner in the face of BVCA.

From 304 applications, only 33 made it to the programme. On the Balkans, 14 start-ups were selected from 140 applications. After careful and rigorous consideration of its business model, strategy, software engineering and other specifics, the team of EIT and Found.ation in Athens, OMNIO was invited to kick start their pre-acceleration programme, on the same day of their interview.

OMNIO Technologies is a reg-tech start-up, which develops SaaS solution for automation of customer verification activities and their transactions in regulated financial institutions (KYC, AML, Fraud). The company’s product, OMNIO, uses machine learning to speed up the process of identifying, neutralising and reporting attempts to commit financial fraud, money laundering and potential unregulated financing of individuals and organisations.

“With the current growth rate, the size of financial crime compliance teams and the reg-tech industry is doubling every three years, due to the ever-increasing complexity of regulations. Companies are trying to meet these challenges with more digitalisation, which is especially urgent now, during the “new normal”. We see the need for a flexible, automated and effective Compliance CRM tool, which we offer and is still non-existent on the market.

OMNIO can be used by a wide range of clients – banks, fintech companies, brokers and other regulated financial companies, optimising compliance costs, helping with all processes and eliminating the risk of human error, “says Stoyan Lozanov, founder of the company. The OMNIO team uses its combined experience in the areas of money laundering prevention and software development to build a complete and innovative solution.

In May, despite the uncertainty caused by COVID-19, the company won funding from the prestigious EIT Digital Venture Programme. The team is completing a 2-months online mentoring programme organised by Found.ation in Athens, as the only representative from Bulgaria. In addition to helping develop their start-up’s business, technology and financial processes, the accelerator also financially supports the start-ups with equity funding. The good news is that OMNIO has already secured its first client, starting the implementation of the product.

Their strategy from now on is to expand their offices and business fourfold, with the help of an investor(s), as well as to start offering more technical solutions. The strategy includes a global scope and special approach for each type of financial institution. They choose the path of finding an investor, in order to have a faster growth, better development and assistance in entering new markets, as well as added value in the expertise – the so-called “smart investment”. Despite their global ambition, the OMNIO representatives hope to work with Bulgarian teams and investors, because of the human capital potential, technical capacity and numerous possibilities for quality investment opportunities on a local level.

Graduates of the programme have the opportunity to receive an additional EUR 10K by EIT when securing a venture capital investment of EUR <50K (equity free). Contact us at [email protected].