In 2023, our CEO, Steve Richards, reached out to an old friend and former colleague, Radoslaw Rejman, a leading venture capitalist based in Warsaw, Poland. Richards had been reading about Central and Eastern Europe’s growing technology sector and the critical mass it had achieved in technical talent. His call to Rejman was also motivated by Steve’s admiration for the Ukraine’s courage and innovations in its fight against Russia. Richards said to Rejman: “There must be something in the water in your part of the world. The people are very smart, creative, and resilient. I want my company to be a member of that community.”

Rejman introduced Richards and his Colleagues at Garnet River to several tech firms and, ultimately, a bond formed between Garnet River and the Warsaw-based software development firm, 7bulls. Richards describes the process: “I first spoke to one of the senior partners at 7bulls, Konrad Wawruch, when he was sailing off the coast of Argentina, in Argentina’s winter. Yes, in the winter! That context played right into my impression of the Polish people and others in that part of the world: capable, resilient, optimistic, and friendly. We hit it off right away.”

More conversations took place over the ensuing months, including visits by each company to the other’s headquarters. Richards says: “We were looking for a critical mass of relevant skills and, more importantly, a company culture that was like ours. In other words, we were looking for practical idealism, which would manifest itself in high quality and innovation. We found all of what we were looking for in 7bulls.”

Richards continues: “We are now partners. They are not our lower cost ‘back office,’ but rather our true partner for pioneering software development. Our projects include robotic process automation, data analytics, and AI. With 7bulls, we are capable of anything. There are no limits.”

Garnet River’s relationship with 7bulls led to another key strategic partnership, with Voicesense, an Israeli-founded firm that works closely with 7bulls. Richards: “Our CTO led an evaluation of Voicesense’ s technology and we concluded that they not only have the best voice to sentiment analysis technology, but also one of the only true voice predictive behavior AI analysis technology in the world.” After that threshold test, Richards and Garnet River management met with the leaders at Voicesense, including Hafeez Jacobson, the CEO of Voicesense. As Richards explains, “Here again, there was great chemistry and a common mindset between our teams. A perfect cultural fit.” Garnet River has integrated the Voicesense technology into two of its solutions and more collaboration is underway.

Garnet River has a strong track record for collaboration. It will use this capability to grow its ecosystem. Richards sees this as a strategic imperative. As he puts it: “The world is only getting smaller and more competitive. We think our ability to partner well and collaborate effectively will be a profound competitive advantage for Garnet River. I must say too, that these relationships also enrich our lives.”