In March this year we announced that the BT Group is the lead investor in Ebriza, a start-up that helps entrepreneurs monitor their business in real time by digitizing how it is managed. For Banca Transilvania, it was another step into the world of fintechs with ideas that support entrepreneurs. More recently, in August, we came with another piece of news: the launch of BT Store, an online hub showcasing solutions that complement banking, which also includes Ebriza.

Let’s find out more about Ebriza, the Romanian start-up that completely reimagines what the cash register, sales and inventory software mean, and can be accessed online, around the clock, from any device! Thanks to Ebriza, entrepreneurs can track their company’s operations, stock and sales in real time. In other words, it helps shape a new way of running a business, and above all a different entrepreneurial mindset.

The start-up was founded by Cristian Dinescu and Alexandru Mares, and is now valued at EUR 1.5 million, triple the previous year. It has 11 employees and over 100 clients in Romania and in other countries. 

This is how the Ebriza idea was born

Ideea a venit in 2005, cand unul dintre fondatori a deschis un business in domeniul HORECA. Dintr-o necesitate s-a nascut propriul soft de gestiune. „Aproximativ 10 ani mai tarziu, cu toate ca tehnologia a avansat, lucurile nu s-au imbunatatit foarte mult. Ne-am dat seama ca lipseste o parte foarte importanta in managementul unei afaceri: un serviciu online care sa ajute toate componentele implicate. Asa s-a nascut Ebriza” – spune Alexandru Mares, CTO si co-fondator. Prin urmare, a fost o combinatie de spirit antreprenorial, necesitate si inovatie, lansata pe piata in 2016.

Designing the platform’s architecture and validating it were the first steps. A year later, Ebriza had its first client, after which came team building and the full implementation of the platform. “Ebriza’s first client was a bar we’re very fond of in Cluj, Tube. Then came another bar, Plan Caffe, and then more and more. We helped each other. We grew and tested the platform, and they gained access to a completely different way of running a business,” recalls Alexandru Mares, CTO and co-founder. In practice, it is software-as-a-service, compatible with any device.

The three milestones in Ebriza’s story

Every business story has, alongside its challenges, defining moments; it’s up to each entrepreneur how they create and capitalize on them. Ebriza has three such moments:

• Participation in Risky Business Cluj, the first start-up accelerator (2017): The fund that backs business ideas and Marcelus Suciu made their first investment in a Romanian start-up—EUR 70,000—for Ebriza’s development. “The Risky Business team was the first to believe in Ebriza and to see its huge potential. They also helped us a lot with the decisions around the investments that followed. We had known one of the members for some time, and later we presented Ebriza to them when we already had our first clients and the idea was validated,” says Cristian Dinescu, CCO and co-founder. Before investing, co-investor Marcelus Suciu tried Ebriza himself: “I wouldn’t have invested if we hadn’t tested the solution in our own business. That’s how we understood what the future of cash registers in Romania would look like—and it’s one that deserves 100% support and promotion.”
  
  

• Being among the finalists at Startup Avalanche, an annual competition organized by Techsylvania and Risky Business (2017): “It wasn’t easy at all. You have to pitch your idea to a jury from very different fields, from Romania and other countries. You have very little time. It was a very interesting experience and we had the chance to meet a lot of fascinating people,” says Alexandru Mares, CTO and co-founder.
  
  

• A capital injection of EUR 300,000 (2018), with the BT Group as lead investor, alongside Risky Business, Marcelus Suciu—the founder of Marty Restaurants—and Dan Isai—the founder of Salad Box. “It’s a fantastic validation of our efforts that BT is investing in Ebriza,” said Cristian Dinescu, CCO and co-founder of Ebriza, when Banca Transilvania announced the investment. “We are pleased to invest in this start-up, which will help SME clients manage their business better. As the bank of enterprising people, it’s essential that we support innovation and the development of a start-up ecosystem, so it’s as easy as possible for entrepreneurs to do business in Romania,” added Omer Tetik, CEO, BT, on the same occasion. On the back of this round, Ebriza set out to focus its efforts on developing its own marketplace, giving any business the opportunity to instantly connect its sales and inventory software with product and service providers.

Running a business is easier with Ebriza

Ebriza is for open-minded entrepreneurs who want mobility and essential, online information about how their business is doing. In practice, for them Ebriza means:

• Access to all core functionalities to run a business: issuing fiscal receipts, a product and price catalog, accounting reports, and advanced management reports—without limits on users or the number of locations.
  
  

• The cash register, sales and inventory software can be accessed online, 24/7, from any device. This way, the entrepreneur can monitor the company’s operations, stock and sales in real time.
  
  

• HORECA, retail or services businesses can integrate with their suppliers or service providers, and with delivery or reservation apps.
    

• A solution you access (not install) and can start using within 24 hours. Ebriza is free for core features—issuing fiscal receipts, the product and price catalog, and accounting reports. Clients pay a monthly subscription for any extra features they choose, such as stock management, advanced customer management, integrations with delivery services, etc. And the SME clients of Banca Transilvania who have a BT Store account benefit from negotiated subscriptions, to offer them something extra as part of our collaboration.
  
  

• No more managing sales with just a traditional cash register—no reports, no inventory management, everything manual and practically no data to give the entrepreneur real leverage.
  
  

“I can’t imagine how you could still run any kind of business today without such a system. The entrepreneur who uses only a cash register is compliant and that’s it. They will have no real-time information about their business. It’s very hard and you waste a lot of time jotting things down on paper and transferring them into spreadsheets. You have no record of stock, suppliers, losses, profits—nothing. At the same time, until Ebriza, using this kind of software was very hard to access from a cost perspective. Ebriza solves that too. Plus, the entrepreneur has everything in one place and can access the software from anywhere. And yes, we also cover the legal side: entrepreneurs can print the fiscal receipt on the cash register,” says Alexandru Mares, CTO and co-founder.

Plans for the future? Plenty: implementing mPOS services, developing the marketplace so publishing apps provided by external developers is even easier and faster, integration with accounting software such as Saga and Winmentor, and building partnerships with food and beverage suppliers.

That’s Ebriza’s story—built for entrepreneurs, as the name suggests. ☺