DBH Group celebrates 20 years

DBH Group celebrates 20 years and expands in the Caucasus

DBH Group at October 19, 2014

DBH Group is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its establishment: the Dutch-Hungarian investment and business services company that has a strong presence in the Central Eastern European region would like to stretch its geographical borders to as far as the Caucasus and Central Asia.

DBH Group celebrated its 20th anniversary on Thursday, 9th October in Budapest, at Europe Boat with more than 200 business partners and employees. DBH Group’s Dutch parent company was founded in 1994 by Hungarian and Dutch local governments and development agencies in the city of Maastricht.

The Development Bridge Head organization – as it was called by then – managed Dutch foreign direct investments in the CEE region, mainly in Hungary. Jean Severijns, International Project Manager of Province of Limburg of the Netherlands – one of the original founders of DBH –, highlighted the key moments of the first years of DBH Group’s existence in his welcoming speech. “At the beginning DBH was a foundation, but with a business goal. Looking back, I can say that it was one of the most successful projects we ever supported as a regional government” – told Jean Severijns.

– We understand that regional stability is essential to serve our international clients. We put a lot of energy and resources to expand our business in Central and Eastern Europe. However we are also making our Western European bridgehead stronger – emphasised Sándor Erdei, Founder-CEO of DBH Group in his ceremonial speech.

He added: “Besides our core regions, we are looking ahead and expanding our services and investment portfolio to the Caucasus and Central Asia, firstly to Turkey and Azerbaijan. Our US bridge will be even more important once our startup portfolio gets closer to exits. We also need to keep focus on innovation and further enhance it at all levels at our company.”

Expanding businesses and locations

During the first 5 years of its existence, the Dutch mother company executed numerous foreign direct investment projects, and started to build up its portfolio of business services. DBH Finance was established in 1999, and since then it has accounted 2 million transactions, handed in almost 200 thousand tax documentation and served customers in 33 countries.

DBH Group opened its Central-Eastern European headquarters in Budapest in 2005. Two years later DBH Group opened its first serviced offices centre in Debrecen, Hungary and established the DBH Serviced Office business unit, which offers serviced, virtual and stand-by offices as well as meeting rooms, conference rooms, events services and all related office administration management.

Since 2010, DBH Investment has invested in 10 startups and innovative enterprises. The venture capital fund targets investment opportunities which have already exceeded the business angel phase, mainly from technology-intensive, high-tech sectors based on innovation.

DBH IT Services was established in 2010, and is now the official reseller and support partner of Exact, the Dutch ERP and CRM software, in Hungary, Romania and Croatia, with further development plans in the region.

Based on the group’s project management experiences since its inception, in 2011 DBH Group established DBH InnoHub, which is dealing with subsidy and project management, national and international R&D projects and credit management. Ever since then DBH InnoHub has closed over 150 successful projects in 19 countries, generating 100 million Euro foreign direct capital in the CEE region.

Based on the company’s two-decade long investment experiences and as proof of their devotion to young and talented startups, DBH SeedStar was established in 2013, specializing in international business development, seed financing, and startup incubation. DBH SeedStar has an extensive network of international business relationships and project teams both in the Netherlands and Hungary to promote regional and international investment relations.

For further details on DBH Group’s services and achievements, please check the microsite dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the company.