The presentation of this Croatian startup from Sveta Nedelja in Italy is due to its encouraging levels of success and the realisation of organisers that Croatia boasts a quiet but rather promising startup scene, despite all of the negative headlines.

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of May, 2019, one of the largest Italian startup conferences, ScaleIT, opened up for new companies from the Republic of Croatia for the first time this year. ScaleIT is an event that brings together fifteen of the most successful startups, mostly from Italy but also from abroad, and connects them with more than seventy VC funds and 150 active business angels.

Lorenzo Franchini, the founder of the ScaleIT program and the founder of the Italian Angels for Growth business association says that due to the eighty million euro Hyundai investment in Croatia's wildly successful Rimac Automobili, headed by Mate Rimac, he is now aware that there are also promising scaleups and other rapidly expanding businesses located in neighbouring Croatia.

"Inspired by the story of Rimac, who has collected more than one hundred million dollars from major international brands such as Hyundai, Kia, Porsche, Camel Grupai and others," stated Franchini.

He added that ScaleIT is looking for startups who want to expand onto international markets and need between three and thirty million euros in capital.

"We create a healthy balance of more than ten investors per single scaleup, and in the last three years, we've secured more than 230 million dollars in capital," said Franchini.

Among the group of investors who will listen the pitches of fifteen of the best startups are investment houses such as Accela, Cisco Investment, EarlyBird VC, Eight Roads, Holtzbrinck Ventures, Index Ventures, Iris Capitals and Partech Ventures, as well as companies such as Euronex, AWS, to Salesforce.

Over the past several years, the aforementioned Italian conference has successfully attracted startups from Slovenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece and the Czech Republic, in addition to those from Italy.

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Click here for the original article by Bernard Ivezic for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of May, 2019, the Zagreb software company Ingemark and the RoomOrders startup, launched by Croats despite having been registered in America, created the first application (app) for ordering food from hotels to hotel rooms and started to conquer the many challenges of the huge global market. They began with the development of this application at the end of 2017, and back then, as a pilot project, they first tested it out at the Hilton Hotel in Boston.

According to them, they will launch RoomOrders at the Hilton Sydney hotel, and then in Belgrade's Hilton in Serbia by the end of the month. The application's software, in which 2 million euro has so far been invested was started by the Zagreb-based company Ingemark, which has been in existence since as far back as 1990, and as of 2006, it has specialised in software development by order.

Funds for the application's development have also been withdrawn from EU funds. In the list of references are big clients such as Agrokor, Adris, HT... One of the most significant cooperations was, as they say, one in the Middle East where clients developed a platform that distributed multimedia content, and soon their latest project, ZorroTines, a regional music platform, will see the light of day right here on the Croatian market. Right now, it seems that this Zagreb company's RoomOrders app is going to go very far indeed.

As Eugene Brčić Jones, the marketing and sales manager at RoomOrders revealed, last week at the International Hotel Technology Forum in Zagreb, the company negotiated with numerous hotel industry leaders about integrating their products.

"We've intrigued the leading world chains and deepened the existing relationships, about which we're certain will bring us to the position of ''disrupter'' of the in-room dining segment within the hotel industry," Brčić Jones said, adding that he believes that in several years, it will be present in a number of world hotels which boast 4 and 5 stars.

"With the help of the RoomOrders application, guests in hotels can order food to their rooms in a few clicks and not in the ''old fashioned'' way. In addition to it having a faster mode, hotels can embark on this project without any large investments," explained Ingemark's director Jurica Mikulić, adding that the application has managed to receive some excellent initial customer reviews and financial results for the hotel. Hilton in Boston has increased its average order value by as much as thirty percent.

''We offer a simple solution that not only increases revenue, but promotes hotels through user-generated content and facilitates analytics. The greatest benefit is that this solution can be implemented without disturbances to the processes involved, and it provides almost instantaneous results,'' Brčić Jones added.

The author of the application, Haris Dizdarević, explained that the creation of RoomOrders was triggered by the current rather obsolete ways of ordering and the obvious need for faster selection and the changing of the menu that guests want in the room.

"We realised we should digitise the offer and thus expand it. The simple idea has become a complex but a successful project," said Dizdarević, explaining that the positive signal was the fact that hotel guests continue to use the application after the first time of using it, and for several days in a row. Although they acknowledge that the Croatian market is not really a priority, they're still negotiating with several Croatian hotels in Dubrovnik and with Maistra, Blue Lagoon (Plava Laguna) and Liburna, and that soon, the application will be launched in Sheraton, part of the huge global Marriott hotel chain.

Otherwise, RoomOrders was introduced DoubleTree by Hilton in Zagreb a few months ago, but then it was a modified version of the app.

"With the new application or system, the guest can, as soon as he is given the room after booking, in advance, even when travelling, immediately choose a range of dishes and orders so that it's ready and waiting in the room upon their arrival. The guest doesn't need to order it from the hotel room, they can do it in advance and choose from a simple and flexible application where all the photos, descriptions and the prices of the food and drinks in the hotel's offer are,'' they explain from hotel Sheraton where this new type of offer and service will be on offer by the end of May, which will, as they say, bring about improvements.

"The application also enables sharing of guest experience on the platform, real-time appraisal of food and services so that the hotel can almost react at the same time to all guests' comments and adapt to the current wishes and preferences of the guest," they added from Sheraton.

"We're sure that at some point there will be some competitors in this segment on the market, but we believe that we're strong and already ahead of them all. We're focusing on the development of this product which we want to make perfect. Along with marketing, the analytic component is the most important, to be more concrete, the analysis of the reactions, comments and the number of orders, so, the entire internal process. We hope to conclude this year with good results and continue to expand successfully,'' Brčić Jones concluded.

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Click here for the original article by Lucija Spiljak for Poslovni Dnevnik

''The most important thing is to have a clear plan and a vision and to be persistent and never give up, because every good idea will find its way to a buyer,'' this was the message sent out to those thinking of becoming Croatian entrepreneurs.

As Ivan Tominac/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 18th of April, 2019, an event organised by Vecernji list and Poslovni dnevnik has the ultimate goal of which is the retention of young educated people in Croatia, and after Osijek, the event will move to Koprivnica, two continental Croatian regions which are often overlooked.

The event will include a tender for student development projects, round tables and forums entitled ''Future in Croatia'' which will be held across six Croatian cities in cooperation with six universities and a traveling exhibition to mark the the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Večernji list. In Koprivnica, the event will be held in cooperation with the North University on Tuesday at 10:00. Croatia's Minister of Tourism Gari Cappelli will give his view of Croatia and available opportunities, and before that, the event will be bringing two stories from Koprivnica that prove that you definitely can succeed in Croatia.

Boris Poljak, the owner of the Pobis company, noted at the very beginning of the conversation that entrepreneurship is not easy but challenging as the market does indeed offer countless possibilities, but whether or not we're successful is down to nobody and nothing but us.

"Being an entrepreneur depends on the person, and not on the place he's in. If one has the will and the desire to be an entrepreneur, then he won't care whether he's doing it in Croatia, Austria, Germany, or elsewhere," Boris Poljak said. For success, it's important to abide by the established plan and rules of the game, ie, certain legal frameworks.

According to him, young people aren't going straight into business today, but instead, they're moving into ''entrepreneurial waters'' because they want to ensure a secure existence for themselves. "The statistics on the opening and the closing of companies is proof of this. Unfortunately, many people don't succeed, but there are many who do succeed and who achieve excellent results here, and more and more are doing so internationally. Running your own business today doesn't require that much capital," Poljak stated with a short and clear message that says that without a clear plan and vision there can be no success.

"You have to work really hard with young people, they're most often not prepared for work and have a lot of prejudices towards employers," emphasised Poljak, adding that in his company he recognised that with the effort and investment poured into young people, he was creating quality staff who could compete on the world market level. Young people are increasingly involved in entrepreneurial ventures, and as a result, there are numerous startups popping up all the time across Croatia, leading to more tenders and investments.

Codebox managed to stumble upon such a welcome fat, the core activity of this organisation is the creation of personalised software, web design, computer equipment maintenance, and processing and data transfer. Martin Kolarić and Filip Stojić began on this path through a startup tender, and today they can safely say that it was a great opportunity to gain new experiences, try out their knowledge and skills and also have some fun.

"For all those who want to be successful, our advice is to work on themselves and their knowledge. A great deal of information is available to all of us and we have the opportunity of continuous learning and training. Innovation and creativity are the most important competencies today, which is why we need to work on our own improvement, this is the only path to real success,'' concluded Martin Kolarić.

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Click here for the original article by Ivan Tominac for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 14th of April, 2019, Croatia's Nocturiglow is currently the biggest startup ''surprise'' in the Republic of Croatia. The story of this startup, which won best pitch at the first Investors Conference @ Algebra Lab, has accelerated beyond all possible expectations.

The Nocturiglow team has developed a low-tech care product for the elderly and infirm which has the same name as the company itself, for those who struggle to get up to go to the bathroom to urinate, or for those who simply cannot for whatever reason. The only, conditionally speaking that is, "technological" thing that Nocturiglow's ''bowl'' possesses is that it has fluorescent elements which make it glow in the dark, which is why it's easy to locate and use during the night. There is a female and a male version.

Nocturiglow's Ivan Babić politely declined to show an image of the design of Nocturiglow's new product, because he is currently in the process of having this intellectual property protected for sale on the EU market.

"We're completely low tech. That was our whole goal, because our competition doesn't focus on quality and user experience, and that's why we think we have room for success," Babić says. He added that Nocturiglow will develop other care products aimed at the older generation in the future, and they will also incorporate sensors, which of course means adding more technology.

Like most millenials today, unsatisfied with the potential income and opportunities that he could accomplish with a master's degree in logistics and management here in Croatia, he was looking for a stroke of luck which would take him down a different path, and so he left Croatia. For three years, he worked as a carer for people with disabilities over in Germany, a job which helped him arrive to this idea in the first place.

"When the STEP-RI startup incubator issued a tender, I applied, I resigned from my job in Germany and came back to Croatia to develop my own business," Babić says. In the past six months, he has made a prototype on his computer with his partner Sara Gunjača and his designer, Ivo Blažinčić.

Now he is preparing to create the very first functional prototype. His plan is to make fifty copies to be shared by test users. Previously, this type of thing was tested through surveys among employees of private and public healthcare institutions.

"We have also noticed that our product is not only good for patients but also for healthcare institutions, because it facilitates jobs for caregivers, as well as insurance companies," added Babić.

He noted that he wants to start selling Nocturiglow's brand new product through his own web store by the beginning of 2020, while the ''attacking'' the EU market through Amazon. He also wants to develop sales to various  healthcare institutions. He has even been in talks with an American company, a partner of Kickstarter, about production. Currently, however, investors haven't come knocking at his door, yet.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more.

Click here for the original article by Bernard Ivezic for Poslovni Dnevnik

This Croatian startup's beginnings come from Zagreb and it first became well known back in 2014 as the first startup attract a large investment from outside of the Republic of Croatia.

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 12th of April, 2019, the Croatian startup Bellabeat received an investment from AOL Ventures in the amount of 14.2 million dollars, the equivalent of 12.5 million euros. It's not the biggest investment to be received by a Croatian startup last year, as that remains marked by Porsche's entrance into the co-ownership of Rimac Automobila for 18.7 millions euros, but it remains the second largest. Bellabeat has so far kept this massive investment secret.

AOL is one of the three largest Internet service providers in the United States of America. The company is part of the large Verizon group, which owns a number of popular media outlets including The Huffington Post, Engadget, TechCrunch, and MapQuest. In the group is also the former Yahoo and the AOL Desktop software solution.

Croatia's Bellabeat underwent restructuring half a year before the investment took place, at the end of 2017 and in early 2018. The company then let a number of its employees go. Sandro Mur, co-founder and director of Bellabeat, subsequently announced that he currently has a total of fifty employees and plans to increase this number to seventy. At that time, the Croatian company's focus was on establishing an office across the Atlantic over in New York. The company has developed a range of high-tech products for women, from jewellery to smart water bottles, and plans to deal with artificial intelligence in the health preservation sector.

Five years ago, the founders of Bellabeat, Sandro Mur and Urška Sršen, set the bar very high for Croatian startups. They received a record 4.5 million dollar investment from a number of well-known investors. Among them were actress Jessica Alba, the creator and leading developer of Google Earth, Paul Buchheit, the founder of TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, one of the hundred richest people, Nicolas Berggruen, and one of the most famous investors in the Silicon Valley and one of the very first to have invested in Google and PayPal, Ron Conway.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia and business pages for much more on startups and companies from Croatia, as well as the overall business and investment climate in Croatia.

Click here for the original article by Bernard Ivezic for Poslovni Dnevnik

Great news for the Croatian startup world!

Five students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing and Faculty of Science have designed an application that can help detect dangerous skin conditions based on a photo.

After just one year, the startup operates on two continents, employs 15 people in four countries, and is preparing for even faster growth.

In 2016 in Croatia, a project that this year increased their number of users from one to 15,000, while receiving an investment of one million dollars for further expansion, has been voted the best startup in Croatia for the Central European Startup Awards.