February 8, 2021 – In a recent test of smart jewelry available on the market, conducted by Business Insider, the Croatian Bellabeat Leaf Urban pendant was named the best smart jewelry, and Bellabeat's Leaf Chakra the best smart bracelet in the world.

As Jutarnji list reports, smart jewelry from one of the first and most successful Croatian startups, the company Bellabeat, was rated the best in the world in the Business Insider survey. They rated Bellabeat’s Leaf Urban pendant as the best smart jewelry in the world, as well as Bellabeat's Leaf Chakra as the best smart bracelet in the world.

The startup of Croatian mathematician Sandro Mur and Slovenian artist Urška Sršen, which became a subsidiary of Five River Group, has been breaking into the market again for the last three years and is succeeding.

Fitness tracker as a work of art

In recent years, Bellabeat has been written about mostly in the context of downsizing and business problems. However, three years ago, they got a new investment, as much as 14 million dollars, started attracting new staff, and now they have received the first major confirmation of their progress in product development.

So far, they have sold two million of their products, and their main market is the US.

Bellabeat states that Leaf Urban, also their best-selling product, is a perfect blend of technology and modern design. They have shown that smart jewelry does not have to be ugly or super masculine to be highly technically useful.

"This piece of smart jewelry in the shape of a leaf turns a fitness tracker into a work of art. It can be worn as a bracelet, necklace or brooch, does not disturb the user with an additional screen, its battery lasts up to 6 months and can monitor your activity, stress level, hydration, menstrual cycle, meditation, and sleep. It connects wirelessly to a mobile app," they point out.

Eight million people use their app

All ideas for Bellabeat's products came from their creative director Urška Sršen. In a recent interview for Jutarnji list, she said that she has been battling autoimmune diseases since she was a child and that she has learned to control them by managing her lifestyle with enough exercise, proper nutrition, enough sleep, and stress reduction.

“I realized that technology can be a great tool that can help raise awareness of your own lifestyle and hone healthy habits. That's how Bellabeat came to be. Most of the tools that were on the market until then were not so much adapted to women, i.e., users who are not so much focused exclusively on fitness, but on their lifestyle in general," said Sršen, who once ended up on Forbes' prestigious "30 under 30" list.

Bellabeat Leaf Urban

The smart water bottle Spring, which enables automatic hydration monitoring, is also in their offer, as well as the Time smartwatch and the new Ivy collection, similar to Leaf, which has additional functions for measuring heart rate and cardio coherence.

In addition to hardware, Bellabeat is increasingly working on its software, which is used by about eight million people. Their app offers more and more personalized content, such as tips related to women’s health and beauty, diet recipes, training plan, guided meditations etc.

Testing and collecting data

This Croatian startup has developed an algorithm that can predict stress resistance on any given day. They claim that if you say that you did not sleep well or that you did not exercise, the algorithm itself will predict that you may be more susceptible to stress that day.

Bellabeat's young team develops this content in collaboration with top wellness instructors. Also, when developing all their products and contents, they consult with medical experts and they test and verify everything.

"I think that in the future, technology will be an increasing factor and contributor to the wellness industry's progress. We want to be a ‘data company’. Technology is our tool, but data is our greatest treasure. Based on that, we can further improve our services, but also work on the development of the wellness market in general," concludes Sršen.

To read more about lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

Young Solin-native Ivan Mrvoš and his company Include achieved impressive business results last year, emerged on new markets, and recently launched a new product - the Monna cycling point, reports Dalmacija Danas on May 18, 2019. 

Just how well Include is doing can be seen by the ongoing Funderbeam campaign, which has already raised almost 1.5 million euros from four hundred investors around the world, half of whom are from Croatia.

The success of the Funderbeam campaign, which lasts for a few more days, has come to the attention of a well-known business portal Business Insider, which has included an extensive feature about Mrvoš, Include, and their successful campaign. This is an incredible recognition for Mrvoš and his Include team as Business Insider is read by millions of people around the world, including a number of entrepreneurs, investors and businesspeople.

In its text, Business Insider emphasizes, in particular, that this Include investment cycle is geared towards gathering resources for business expansion. Not only for new products but also for new ways of doing business.

They mention Monna which, apart from being a smart bench with a charger for various devices and a charging station for electric bikes, comes with a screen where you can display ads.

Mrvoš has expressed that he would like to move into the direction of advertising. Namely, he and Include are planning to extend their product line in the future with smart bus stops and waste bins, which would also be equipped with screens to show ads. Furthermore, advertising space and software which runs the entire Include system will be sold to other companies as a way to earn profit. 

As Business Insider points out, "Mrvoš wants to create an online advertising network in the physical world that would have a reach like Facebook or Google today on the Internet."

To achieve this ambitious plan, Mrvoš needs 4 million euros. According to current data, they are almost halfway there. 

Ivan Mrvoš took to his Facebook to share his excitement about the Business Insider feature. 

You can read the full story on Business Insider.

To read more about business in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page. 

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