Bulgaria waited until 2022 for its first unicorn
- Payhawk — first unicorn, March 2022
- Sofia’s tech sector grew 300% in seven years
- Discoverer — a petascale supercomputer in Sofia
- Plovdiv is the second tech city
Three editorial pieces on the Bulgaria digital market. Editorial register, no product pitch. Companion series: France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Luxembourg.
How Bulgaria’s tech scene grew
Betahaus opens in Sofia
The first coworking space in Bulgaria, and for several years the default meeting point for the country’s startup scene.
The digital economy here
Bulgaria’s technology sector grew from an outsourcing base — English-speaking engineers doing contract work for western European and American clients — and has spent the last decade converting that into companies of its own. Sofia’s sector grew by around 300% in seven years, which is the kind of number a small base makes possible and a large one does not.
The turning point people point to is Payhawk. On 1 March 2022 a $100 million Series B led by Lightspeed made it Bulgaria’s first unicorn. It is worth being precise about what happened next: the company is now headquartered in London, while about three-quarters of its team remain in Bulgaria. That pattern — engineering stays, the head office follows the capital — is the honest shape of Bulgarian tech success so far, and it is a fair thing to know before assuming the ecosystem retains what it builds.
The state has put real money into research infrastructure rather than just incentives. Sofia Tech Park, the country’s first science and technology park, hosts Discoverer, a petascale supercomputer commissioned in October 2021 and upgraded in 2025 — the first EuroHPC machine anywhere to get a major upgrade. Outside Sofia, Plovdiv is the clear second centre, home to roughly a third of the country’s major IT employers, and Varna runs a smaller Black Sea scene that shares a city with a substantial tourism economy.
Where the work happens
Concentrated in Sofia, and unusually institutional for a market this size — the state-backed park matters here in a way it would not in, say, Belgium.
Sofia Tech Park
Bulgaria’s first science and technology park, and the site of the Discoverer supercomputer. Runs laboratories, an incubator and shared research facilities rather than acting purely as an office landlord.
Betahaus Sofia
The first coworking space in the country, open since 2012, and still one of the main places the Sofia startup community actually gathers.
BASSCOM
The Bulgarian Association of Software Companies — the industry body for the software sector, and the source most national figures about it trace back to.
Events worth knowing
One Bulgarian event has consistently drawn an international audience.
Webit
A technology and innovation festival based in Sofia that has run for years as the country’s main international-facing tech gathering, pulling in speakers and investors from well beyond the region.
How Bulgarian businesses buy websites
Two things shape this market more than anything else: Bulgarian is written in Cyrillic, and a large part of the economy sells outward — to EU clients, to tourists, or to both. Deciding which audience the page is for, and being honest about it, matters more here than the design does.
Trades and home services
Almost entirely local and almost entirely searched in Bulgarian. Say which districts you cover and make the phone number easy to press.
Clinics, salons and studios
Online booking, clear prices, and a page that works on a phone. In Sofia, an English version widens the catchment considerably.
Shops, cafés and hospitality
On the Black Sea coast the summer trade is international. Hours, location and menu readable in English as well as Bulgarian pays for itself in a season.
Professional and B2B services
If you sell to western European clients, the site is your credibility. Be specific about what you do, name your team, and publish in English.
How well do you know Bulgaria’s digital economy?
5 quick questions. Get all 5 right and you win a 10% off discount code. Every answer is somewhere on this page.
Bulgaria quiz · 1 of 5
Which company became Bulgaria’s first unicorn?
Why FastSites works here
A market built on doing good technical work for less money than the buyer expected is a market that recognises a fair price when it sees one. Ours is published before you speak to anyone.
Live in days, built mobile-first, and light enough to load quickly on a coastal connection in August. Tell us whether the page is for Bulgarian customers, international ones, or both — that decision shapes everything else, and it is better made deliberately than by accident.
The Bulgaria series
One piece per city, written in an editorial register for people assessing the market rather than shopping for a supplier.
Plovdiv: Bulgaria’s second tech city, and a former European Capital of Culture
Around a third of Bulgaria’s major IT employers keep an office in Plovdiv — second only to Sofia, and ahead of the coastal city of Varna.
1 min readVarna: Bulgaria’s Black Sea tech and tourism city
Varna runs a real, if smaller, IT sector alongside its role as Bulgaria’s main Black Sea resort and port city.
1 min read