With its new capital, the successful Croatian company Include is expected to expand its product offering in the smart cities area.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 12th of September, 2019, the Republic of Croatia's largest VC fund, Fil Rouge Capital, has invested a massive four million kuna into the Solin-based startup Include, founded and managed by innovative entrepreneur Ivan Mrvoš.

The young entrepreneur and Incude CEO boasted on Facebook that this was a step closer to the company's informal goal of as much as thirty million kuna in investment, which is an aim he had set for himself by the end of this year. Previously, Include had raised 15 million kuna through Funderbeam, bringing the total investment in 2019 to the most famous Croatian smart bench manufacturer up to an impressive 19 million kuna.

Ivan Mrvoš, founder and CEO of Include, posted about Include's latest investment on Facebook, saying it was an important day for his company.

"Fil Rouge Capital - FRC has invested four million kuna, which means that in 2019 we have (so far) secured as much as 19 million kuna through investments and now an incredibly challenging period awaits us in which we plan to open offices in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the United Kingdom..., and to present several new and significantly more advanced technological solutions for smart cities by the end od 2020,'' Include's boss wrote.

Just how much this new investment has increased Include's market value remains, however, unknown. After the Croatian company's last campaign via Funderbeam, it exceeded one hundred million kuna. Mrvoš also boasted that one of the four largest auditors in the world estimated that Include, at that time, was worth an incredible 110 million kuna.

With its new capital, Include is thus expected to expand its product offering in the smart cities area. Mrvoš, on the other hand, revealed back in early July this year that he wanted to build his own campus. The idea is that it would be spread over 15,000 square metres and would accommodate not only new product development and manufacturing, but also employee living spaces.

That idea is something similar to what another wildly successful Croatian company called Infobip is already doing in Croatia, but Mrvoš wants the new campus to be like the first Croatian smart city.

Ivan Mrvoš appeared on Forbes' prestigious list of 30 Under 30 in Manufacturing & Industry for 2019 in Europe back in February. His company is already present in more than 260 cities and on 44 markets worldwide with its innovative products. Otherwise, Include had its very first investment round in 2017, and has come a very long way since.

He then raised 465,000 euros in capital through Funderbeam. Since then, larger private domestic investors also started recognising Include's huge potential and began investing in the company. Among them is Stjepan Talan, the owner of Solvis, a company known for its solar panel manufacturing, which has invested four million kuna in Include. Mrvoš claims that foreign funds are also beginning to show interest, too.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for more information on Include's products and much more on Croatian innovation, entrepreneurs, companies and startups.

Finance Minister Zdravko Marić stressed that the Croatian tax system must be stable, predictable and maximally consistent, and that rax relief should, as such, remain continuous.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes on the 10th of June, 2019, innovation and creativity in business both open up opportunities to boost productivity and the overall growth of Croatian companies, as was stated on Monday at the Croatian Entrepreneur's day of the Croatian Employers' Association (HUP).

Gordana Deranja, the president of the Croatian Employers' Association, pointed out the fact that the Croatian Government's contribution to GDP growth in the first quarter of this year was 3.9 percent, but this still isn't enough and that things must not simply stop there, because structural reforms are very much needed, andy are always being delayed.

"Please, be responsible. Leave the cheap populism behind and do your jobs. The war ended a long time ago, with the last one ending thirty years ago. The past belongs in the past and the future brings with it new chances - innovation and creativity. We need to develop them because they're the key in today's merciless market competition,'' added Deranja.

The shifts that the government has made in the direction of tax breaks for citizens and employers have paid off and resulted in some positive changes, but we can't just stop there because that isn't enough, Croatia and its economy are still in debt when we compare it with other countries, in almost all parameters,'' Deranja said, and recommended to this government, as well as to all future Croatian governments, to stop simply playing politics and be more responsible.

Deranja added that hundreds of Croatian high school students who, with their entrepreneurial ideas and their various innovative projects had been in included in the ''Entrepreneurs of the Future'' contest, and that this alone has confirmed that Croatia has talent for the future.

"Our goal is to maintain fiscal stability and consistency, and our biggest loss would be that the tax we've managed to abolish ending up returning again. Predictability is important to entrepreneurs, so the tax and administrative relief should be continuous. Croatia can remember much higher growth rates thant this last one, at 3.9 percent. Although growth rates are lower today than they've been in the recent past, they're on a much healthier basis and provide a sound basis for further growth,'' Marić said.

The gathering was accompanied by the arrival of the President of the Republic of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who pointed out that in achieving a developed economy, innovation and creativity are the foundations of global competitiveness, and she believes that this gathering will highlight the fact that besides potential, Croatia also has enough capacity, will, and strength to build a modern, efficient innovation system.

Representatives of large Croatian companies spoke on their respective experiences in applying innovation and creativity. Mate Rimac from Rimac Automobili pointed out the fact that he was not sure that the idea itself, without any commercial realisation, had any real, special value.

"When we got the idea for our Concept One, 10 years passed, a lot of work and money was spent, and 150 people were needed to make that project come true," said Rimac, whose company employs 600 people and has since attracted more than 100 million euros in direct foreign investment.

At the end of the event, the Croatian Employers' Association awarded five Croatian schools within the scope of their project "Entrepreneurs of the Future".

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