In the bustling heart of Bucharest, Romania, Florin Cioaca, a former trader and Florin Grosu, a former banker, saw an opportunity to revolutionize how financial institutions train their personnel.

Drawing from their extensive experience in banking and their frustration with the existing rudimentary training tools, they envisioned a dynamic and interactive trading simulator.

Thus, Vega Simulator was born in 2015, aiming to blend cutting-edge technology with deep market insights to offer real-time trading simulation.

The early years were dedicated to product development and overcoming initial challenges. The company graduated from QC Fintech (now RevTech Labs) in early 2015 and, upon graduation, received an investment from a VC in Charlotte, NC, followed by another investment from Seedcamp in London. These investments allowed us to fund a small team of AI specialists and software developers.

Our goal was to create a simulator that not only mirrored real market fluctuations but also incorporated gamification to make learning engaging and effective. These years were marked by long development cycles, testing, and refining the core algorithms that would drive the simulator's realistic market scenarios.

Vega Simulator's big break came when it secured its first contract with a major North American bank. The simulator's ability to provide real-time analytics and tailor scenarios to individual learning paths set it apart, and soon word spread.

Vega Simulator began to attract attention from other major financial institutions. This validation was crucial, bolstering the team's morale and securing additional funding. It is also 2018 when Vega Simulator came through F10 (now Tenity) and signed a strategic partnership with PwC, as well as a research partnership on bias detection with ETH Zurich.

With a successful product in the market, Vega Simulator expanded its offerings to cover various roles within banking sectors, such as sales and trading, risk management, and compliance. The simulators became known for their advanced analytics, which helped trainees identify and mitigate unconscious biases in trading decisions. By 2021, Vega Simulator was not just a tool for individual banks but had become an integral part of regulatory compliance training programs across Europe.

Vega Simulator continued to innovate, launching new features like adaptive AI learning environments and integration with real-time global financial news to simulate unexpected market movements. Strategic partnerships with educational institutions and data providers like Refinitiv enriched the simulator's capabilities. By 2024, Vega Simulator had trained over 125,000 junior traders and was recognized as a global leader in financial training simulations.

As Vega Simulator looks to the future, it plans to expand its reach into retail markets and smaller financial firms, making high-quality trading education accessible to a broader audience. The company is also exploring potential uses of virtual and augmented reality to make the simulation experience even more immersive. With a robust sales strategy and new products in the pipeline, Vega Simulator is poised to redefine how financial professionals are trained in an ever-evolving market landscape.

Throughout its journey, Vega Simulator has remained committed to its core mission of enhancing the skills and decision-making abilities of financial professionals, ensuring that they are well-prepared to meet the challenges of modern markets.