Croatian innovation seems to know no bounds (other than state bureaucracy that is), and is continuing to go from strength to strength with an impressive wave of technological inventions and solutions, winning acolades and recognition from around the world.

As Samo Pozitivno writes on the 22nd of May, 2019, Croatian-made flight control software, Vibe solution, has been declared the world's best technical solution by the expert IFATCA jury, an international flight control association. As far as the acknowledgment for this piece of innovation, the representatives of Vibe and Croatian air traffic control received an award during the first day of the IFATCA58 event, which took place from the 20th to the 24th of May in Costa Rica.

To win the title of being the absolute best of the best, this Croatian software was carefully chosen among technical solutions from more than 130 countries worldwide. The jury awarded their recognition to the Croatian multi-briefing system, which is one of the brighter examples of cooperation between the private and public sectors.

''The idea was to develop a system that will enable the easier and faster information flow between departments in air navigation control so that decisions can be made timely and precisely on the basis of "in-time" information, but also to maximise the performance of the department. Croatia's air traffic control has proven to be an excellent partner, as it recognised this idea five years ago and helped us to develop a system that has made the experts proclaim it the best in the world,'' said Marko Emer, the creator of Vibe Solution software upon receiving the award which was handed over by Philippe Domagal.

The value of this Croatian software was recognised by most of the 50,000 members of IFATCA from more than 130 countries around the world, consisting of aerospace and flight control professionals, making this success even more significant.

"It's always nice to get praised for some work, but when that praise comes from the experts, and when the choice is between the solution made by an IT company from Croatia and hundreds of other software developing companies from some of the richest countries in the world, then that feeling of satisfaction is far greater. This award for Vibe Solution once again proves that Croatia can truly prosper by investing in IT and providing opportunities for digital transformation through our innovations,'' emphasised Emer.

In the following four days of the IFATCA58 conference, numerous meetings took place between representatives of air navigation control from around the world, and there were certainly be opportunities for Croatian representatives to elaborate more closely on their experience with Vibe Solution software.

''Now the Croatian air traffic control officially uses system uses the best multi-briefing software in the world, which surely brings extra credibility among colleagues from around the world,'' added Emer, adding that he hopes that this Croatian software will soon be adopted by yet more countries across the world.

Make sure to stay up to date on more Croatian inventions, innovation, products and services and much more by following our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages.

Click here for the original article by Slobodna Dalmacija

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

Croatia's ''Include'' continues to go from strength to strength in the face of an unforgiving system and even less forgiving employees of the state bodies, proving that where there is a will, there's a way, even if you happen to be in Croatia.

We often hear all about how Croatian companies are failing due to either the lack of will or, more frequently, the truly insane amount of red tape and obstacles placed before anyone who wants to make something for themselves by the state and an old, outdates and senseless system of bureaucracy. 

As unoiled the cogs continue to turn in the Office(s) of the Uhljeb in state institutions of all kinds up and down the country, the unsackables continue to undermine and chip away at the determination of the doers and would-bes from behind their perspex windows.

Faced with an entire forest's worth of paperwork, more stamps than a border control officer and usually an unacceptably hostile attitude from the state employee (also known as the unsackable) dealing with them, many would-be entrepreneurs give up quickly and head elsewhere in search of their dreams. However, as big as Croatia's problem in this regard really is, not everything is so bleak.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of May, 2019, just six days after the launch of another Funderbeam SEE group fundraising campaign, Ivan Mrvoš and his highly successful company ''Include'' raised a massive 1.22 million euros in equity, making Include's campaign the largest ever on Funderbeam globally.

The director of Funderbeam SEE, Damir Bićanić, commented that Mrvoš is pushing the records of the platform with Include yet again: "With their first campaign, they collected what was then the largest sum on the Funderbeam platform, and although sum has risen in the meantime, they collected more than any other campaign in just six days on the platform once again, globally.''

After Include's first successful campaign when they collected 465,000 euros on Funderbeam back in 2017, this time their first campaign goal of 1.2 million euros was met in a mere six days, and investors still have the opportunity to meet the target of two million euros.

"We're very pleased that after six days we've reached the minimum planned goal. I think that this, as well as 290 investors from 21 countries, are the indicators that we're doing a really good job. I believe that the amount of investment in the remaining days will grow steadily, although we're already the most successful Croatian crowdinvesting campaign on the platform ever,'' stated Include's founder Ivan Mrvoš.

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Ever been browsing online mindlessly and come across a YouTube video showing how to create something and thought: Hang on, I could do that? One Croatian man from Kutina did exactly that and has thus decided to turn his hobby into a business, and if he had the time to pay attention solely to that, it would take off even faster than it has done already.

As Novac/Jasmina Trstenjak writes on the 28th of April, 2019, if we open our eyes a little bit, we'll see that there are ideas to start our own business all around us. Some of us stumble upon them, recognise them, and start from the idea itself, and some ideas literally come and find us and prevent us from bypassing them and remaining just as ideas.

Matija Kašner from the continental Croatian town of Kutina, who makes furniture from disposable pallets, says that in the case of his very own creation Sklepaj.me "everything began from itself, and quickly".

When my wife and I moved into this house, we didn't particularly like the furniture in the stores, and as I saw people doing innovative things from palets online, I decided to make a bed out of pallets and then a terrace. So then I decided to put what I'd made on Njuškalo (a Croatian buy and sell website) and try to sell it. One woman called me who wanted to equip her entire apartment house in Crikvenica with tables and chairs, and that was the first big job from which it all began,'' says Kašner.

He remembers thinking how big that job was and wondered whether or not he could manage to do it all in time. But, with the help of friends and even without the right tools - he succeeded. As his first client needed an invoice, he opened an obrt (small company) and officially turned his hobby into a job back at the end of 2013. Then, another project came for an IT company and that was great in the full sense of the word - he equipped the entire building.

The young IT team wanted something different, they ordered armchairs, beds because they had a "chill out" room, and the like. Sklepaj.me quickly started to grow bigger, and its initiator, an economist by profession, said the job would have grown at an even faster pace if he was only doing that.

Namely, Kašner comes from an entrepreneurial family, and given his business versatility, the entrepreneurial genes have obviously been passed down to him and, besides making furniture, he grows raspberries, rents out electric bikes and conducts tourist tours, is engaged in a family business, and addition to that, he's employed in a company in which he's the head of the branch.

''Sklepaj.me is just a hobby that in some way created itself and which I do after work. We don't live on that. We live from our wage,'' Kašner makes sure to confirm.

But, if he was engaged solely in this hobby, could he live from it? The idea with the pallets seems to be a great one. What's the real market potential? Where are the palets obtained? Is it an expensive hobby? How lucrative is it...? There are many questions.

''I'd expand the range and then yes, I then could live from it, but I'd have to exhibit at fairs, I'd have to be present in design spheres, etc. The order, or its quantity, depends on the revenue and sometimes that can be high only even with just one or two orders per year. Averages are difficult to come up with. There are no such rules. If I had to do three big orders per year for around 30,000 kuna, which is one nice cafe or hostel, I'd sign up tomorrow to do only that. That could provide for a decent life,'' Kašner says when discussing his innovative business that brought the strongest revenue in six years last year with only one project, which was his largest ever so far, for Zrće.

He also revealed that he's now negotiating orders that would be almost of the same size as that one. Namely, two shelves of furniture (60 armchairs, 30 tables, 60 bar tables...) were sent to Zrće, a project on which for two or three months, he worked intensively without any contact with the outside world for 10-12 hours per day.

When it comes to a series, everything depends on how many pieces someone orders, and so far he has already worked on tables, armchairs, deck chairs, bar stools and desks and even lamps. One armchair costs between 400 and 600 kuna, depending on whether they want a sponge putting on it or not, tables are about the same price, deck chairs are about 800-900 kuna, and the bar tables are of the same rank as deck chairs.

"I like to make sure the prices are acceptable, so when someone goes to the store and sees a rattan deck chair, he can see that for roughly the same money he can get something unique, and something that not many will have,''

He also mentions the seasonal rhythm of this job because someone who owns a tourist facility orders the furniture in the winter and then winter is spent working for the tourist season in summer. Then comes stagnation in June and July, and in August there are orders to arrange children's rooms, renovations for peoples houses and other similar things.

As Croatia's economic and demographic issues continue, there's a lot to be said for being creative and starting your own business to generate some income, even if it's just extra cash on the side, and this innovative and talented gentlemen from Kutina is the perfect example of exactly that mindset.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia and business pages for much more on Croatian companies, Croatian products and services and Croatian innovation.

Click here for the original article by Jasmina Trstenjak for Novac/Jutarnji

This Croatian startup from Zagreb is a real mix of classical and virtual mobile games, but also has an educational mission.

As Ivan Tominac/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 28th of April, 2019, today, virtual games have replaced classic ones like ''Čovječe ne ljuti se'' (Ludo) or ''Monopoly'', but when classically associated with a digital game, you end up with a smart social game - Mundus.

A passionate love for technology is shared by three students from Zagreb. They all came together two years ago, and their project is Mundus. Social games are undervalued today, these guys agree, and although industry experts might say that their project isn't in demand in this day and age, the fact is that they entered the startup world directly from their school desks and are learning in parallel with the development of the project.

"We had to combine what was unknown knowledge to us back then. But given the fact that we love to learn and to develop technology, it wasn't difficult for us,'' stated of Mundus's members, Filip Hercig, who was the one to kick off the project initially.

The idea for Mundus was quite spontaneous back at the end of 2015 when Hercig, who is now in charge of business development, showcased the very first concept of this clever game during a competition for young technicians and young entrepreneurs. The name changed several times - at the earliest stage it was called ''Zabavan put Hrvatske'' (A fun journey of Croatia) and then ''Svijet na dlanu'' (The world in your palm), before taking on its current name.

"In the summer of 2017, when we came to the CROZ company to develop our ideas, we decided to shorten its name from Svijet na dlanu down to just Svijet, but as it didn't sound good, we decided to translate into Latin, and that's how Mundus began,'' said Filip Hercig.

It seems that Mundus isn't just your regular type of game, and the focus of the project today is on the application of this technology within the scope of formal education. It's actually an educational system, and the game is just one of the solutions the Mundus team is working on. A mobile device acts as a kind of gaming agent, where players choose the theme for the game and launch a quiz, and everything else is played on the game's board, like with classic games before the Internet age.

Things became much more serious for this Croatian startup back in September of last year, when they won the Good Game Liftoff startup competition.

"They chose us as the best startup and besides giving us their trust, they also gave us 100,000 kuna. We can't forget to mention the Good Game Global company that actually organised the competition and raised all the funds for that prize,'' added Hercig.

After winning the Good Game Liftoff, this Croatian startup managed to secure numerous collaborations, is currently working with 48 schools across the Republic of Croatia, and interest in the game has stretched far beyond the borders of the country, and even beyond the borders of the EU and the European continent.

"There's interest on the Australian and New Zealand market, specifically in the education sector. We're currently conducting tests that are a prerequisite for serious moves in these markets,'' said Hercig. Mundus is actually still a non-profit organisation, explained Hercig, and in 2019, it should turn into a real company.

"We're oriented towards cooperating with educational institutions, but of course we're not closing the door to purchase options for private users. We've got potential there tool, and in order to best explore the mass market, we plan to launch a Kickstarter campaign in September 2019,'' concluded Mundus' Filip Hercig.

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

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

When it comes to results, Croatia's Include published an impressive 115 percent growth in revenue in the first quarter of the year, and an average selling price growth of almost 40 percent.

As Tomislav Pili/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 23rd of April, 2019, one of the main stars of the Croatian startup scene, entrepreneur Ivan Mrvoš, is continuing to impress. Just two years after Include's first capitalisation through Funderbeam, recapitalisation is about to happen again, aiming this time at almost ten times the amount. Before today's public announcement of the campaign, Include's main man revealed that his company, which is a top Croatian manufacturer of solar powered benches, is collecting part of the finances through Funderbeam while the other part will be provided by private investors.

"After the successful first round of investment back in 2017, when we raised about 3.5 million kuna with a 30 million kuna valuation, we decided to enter a new round of recapitalisation. We didn't set a fixed amount, but we expect that the investment will be at least 20 million kuna, with the potential to reach approximately 30 million kuna. As for Funderbeam's part of the investment, we're expecting to raise about 10 million kuna through the platform,'' said Include's boss Ivan Mrvoš. At the moment, he has secured about 10 million kuna from the Funderbeam platform and is actively discussing the additional funds with several potential investors, including private individuals and venture capital funds.

"Right now, I can't say which investors are involved, but they're people who have led or are currently leading various Croatian industries, which we consider to be a significant indicator," he pointed out. When asked how much shares in Include now sell for and how much the company is valued at, Include's founder explained that things are a bit different now than they were back in 2017.

"The company has four years of business behind it and some remarkable results have come to fruition, so we decided to hire one of the companies from ''The Big Four'' to do a valuation. What I can say is that it was a very intensive process that lasted for several months, and the company was estimated at 110 million kuna last week,'' says Mrvoš.

"The company ended last year with a positive result, and we also continued things successfully during the first quarter of this year, with 60,000 kuna of net profit," Mrvoš revealed.

The collected money will certainly go into the development of existing markets, but also to conquering new markets.

"We intend to strengthen our presence on existing markets and continue to build a global distribution network. In addition, we're beginning with the development of new products that will be complementary for the existing markets, and intended for those same markets, and we'll also get some more advanced equipment for our development and production activities,'' explained the talented young entrepreneur.

The trading of Include's tokens at Funderbeam was stopped on April the 1st this year due to campaign preparation, and the latest market price is 3.5 euros. The director of Funderbeam Damir Bićanić explained that the price of the shares will not be one euro as they usually are in Funderbeam's campaigns, but higher, meaning more specifically that they'll reflect the company's new valuation.

The leading investor, as was the case in 2017, will be Ivana Šoljan who says that Include will certainly pass at least one recapitalisation, and "hopefully maybe go to the stock market in the future.''

"Mr Ivan Mrvoš and his whole team have advanced tremendously. Organisationally, they did well, they wrote regular reports to investors, they're not late with deliveries, they plan things smartly - they're ready for a new round,'' concluded Šoljan.

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Click here for the original article by Tomislav Pili for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 16th of April, 2019, in the very first NOA store in Dublin, Ireland, this company from Koprivnica, Croatia, sells mobile phones, televisions and mobile phone accessories all under their own brand.

Croatia's successful Hangar18 company from Koprivnica, which has developed its very own brand of mobile phones, NOA, which has a market share in the domestic field immediately behind giants like Samsung and Apple, has opened its first own NOA store.

The first brand store the company has opened is in the Irish city of Dublin, and this Croatian technology company has stated that it plans a further fifteen such stores in Ireland alone. Additionally, over the next three years, Hangar18 plans to open a total of one hundred of its own NOA stores across Western Europe.

Mario Pintar, Marketing Manager at Hangar18, says this enviably successful Croatian company has changed their approach to developing its sales network. In Eastern markets, with the exception of Croatia, and where they have been operating so far, the company does business via distributors, while in the west, he wants to be in direct contact with the company's customers.

"Customers in Eastern Europe buy mobile phones of up to 150 euros, while in the west, due to the better purchasing power, they're buying more expensive devices, and we see a greater room for growth," explained Pintar. He added that the company's expansion initially started a year ago, and intensive work has been going on on for the past six months.

He didn't want to comment on just how much the company invested, nor did he want offer any comment on much they plan to invest in further expansion. According to data from Business Croatia, Hangar18 saw growth from 242 to 137 million kuna from 2013 to 2017, its exports jumped to an impressive 66.7 million kuna, and its net profit rose from 1.3 to 4.8 million kuna. Mario Pintar says that they already have a warehouse over in Ireland and that they're hiring the first workers for it. He says that on average, the company will require three to four employees per store, and potentially even more for sales and management.

"Our colleague Tihana Magdić has been living in Dublin for a long time, so that's why we started with Ireland. She was promoted to country manager, she's well acquainted with the market, and the shopping centre we first entered was a great partner and it was very easy to arrange everything with them,'' Pintar said.

Pintar explained that in the west, Croatia's Hangar18 will compete in the B category of brands, but as the first choice of those who instead of A brands want the Best Buy mobile.

"What sets us apart is the fact that we give customers the functionality of A brand at a fair price, and then the Noa Premium Care warranty covers the first twelve months for damages such as screen breakages and water damage, and our ''after sales support,'' and we open our authorised NOA service in every country we enter,'' explained Pintar.

He added that after Ireland, Croatia's Hangar18 plans to open stores in other European countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain. However, he noted the fact that they hadn't forgotten about the eastern markets. For example, in Croatia alone, there are fifteen retail outlets where they sell various brands of ICT equipment. "Recently, we've been able to directly export to Russia as a third company from Croatia, which opens opportunities for us in both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan,'' concluded Hangar18's Pintar.

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

While bleak and uninspiring stories about the state of the Croatian economy and doing business in Croatia continue to circulate across news and media portals as well as in newspapers, not everything is so bleak, you just need to look a little harder. Croatia's AD Plastik has contracted brand new jobs for the European Union market worth a massive 46.8 million euros.

As SEEbiz writes on the 16th of April, 2019, Croatia's AD Plastik d.d. has contracted the new jobs for the European Union for the PSA and FCA Group.

The job of the production of speaker carriers for the Citroen Picasso and C-Elysee PSA Group cars was contracted, which is worth 1.7 million euros, with the start of production scheduled for 2020 with a projected eight-year duration. With the very same buyer, the production of side panels for the Citroen C3 in the value of an additional three million euros, with the start of production planned in 2020, is also in the works, with a projected duration of four years.

New operations for the production of guardrails/handrails for several PSA Group vehicles (Peugeot 208, Peugeot 2008, Citroen DS3 Crossback and Opel Corsa) have been agreed with a total value of 20 million euros attached to them, with a projected ten-year duration, and the works begining during 2019. The Opel Adam Crossback is yet another vehicle from the aforementioned group, for which the engine manufacturing, costing 1.4 million euros, has been contracted with Croatia's AD Plastik, with the anticipated start of serial production being next year, and the duration of the project standing at seven years.

Croatia's AD Plastik d.d. also arranged and contracted 20.7 million euros' worth of new jobs for the FCA Group for the Jeep Compass and Fiat 500e cars. For the Fiat 500e, interior components and air intakes will be produced at AD Plastik's factories, and the total value of the project is 13.9 million euros. The project duration is projected at eight years and serial production is planned for 2020.

For the Jeep Compass, handgrip production contracted at 6.8 million euros has been agreed and the start of serial production is planned for next year with an estimated four year project duration.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more on doing business in Croatia, products and services from Croatia, manufacturing in Croatia and much more.

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