The highly successful Croatian IT company Infobip just keeps going from strength to strength, and the latest spring in its step will certainly push it to even higher plains and help further expansion across the Atlantic in the United States.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 30th of July, 2020, Infobip has raised over 200 million US dollars from the One Equity Partners investment fund. This is the first round of financing, according to Reuters, adding that the value of this Croatian company now stands at over a billion dollars, reports N1.

This company thus became the first unicorn in the Republic of Croatia, and this is a term used in the venture capital industry when a privately owned startup achieves a value of over a billion dollars.

The investment will help Infobip further expand in the American market through potential acquisitions and the ability to compete with rivals such as the San Francisco-based Twilio, Reuters sources said.

Infobip is a global IT and telecommunications company, founded back in 2006 in Croatia, that provides the technology and services needed for multi-channel marketing by enabling companies to communicate with customers via text messages or applications such as the wildly popular WhatsApp.

Giants like Uber, Costco and Unilever are just some of the clients of this incredible Croatian IT company, which communicate with over seven billion mobile devices in more than 190 countries around the world, according to Reuters.

Croatia's Infobip had a 38 percent increase in revenue in 2019, generating revenue of 602 million euros. Infobip will now focus on expanding the business, says one Reuters source.

The research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts the growth of communication platform services (CPaaS) from 3.3 billion US dollars in 2018 to 17.2 billion US dollars by the year 2023.

For more on Infobip and more Croatian companies and startups, follow our dedicated business section.

As Milan Pavlovic/Glas Istre writes on the 19th of March, 2020, during these times of coronavirus crisis when any sort of assistance that can contribute to us coping more effectively with this dire situation in which we can all come together is very welcome. The remarkable Croatian company Infobip is making that happen.

The excellent news comes from the Pula General Hospital which has received a valuable donation consisting of four medical devices that are extremely important for the care of suspected or coronavirus infected patients.

One of these devices is an advanced mechanical respirator that is scheduled to arrive in Pula in the coming week, intended for the facility's intensive care unit. It is a priceless medical device that helps patients with respiratory problems by pumping air into their lungs and allowing their body to function smoothly until the patient recovers and can breathe naturally again without additional assistance.

"The advanced mechanical respirator will be used by patients who need mechanical ventilation support and comes as a donation for the internal medicine unit, while the other three medical devices are intended for the pediatrics department," Dr. Daniela Fabris Vitkovic stated. A new mobile ultrasound device, a vital function monitor, and a high-throughput therapy system and CPAP bubble for premature babies, newborns and children up to the age of eighteen will also arrive at the department for pediatrics.

"The CPAP device for high-flow oxygen therapy has already been delivered to the hospital and is ready to be put into operation, and the rest should arrive in the coming days. It's a medical device that helps patients with respiratory failure to overcome a period of illness, and this may delay or eliminate the need to connect them to a respirator. The donation is intended to combat the COVID-19 virus more effectively, and all of these devices will make a significant contribution to helping those patients who show more severe symptoms and require intensive treatment,'' Dr. Fabris Vitkovic added.

The donated equipment is worth more than 600 thousand kuna, and Dr. Daniela Fabris Vitkovic thanked the incredible Vodnjan-based company Infobip, which is behind the donation. As one of the leading Croatian IT companies, Infobip reacted very seriously to the threat of the spread of coronavirus, and back at the end of February, all Infobip employees were preventively ordered to work from home.

In doing so, they have shown that they are an extremely responsible company that cares for the health of their employees and their families, and this donation to the Pula General Hospital is a practical example of a socially responsible business that is a shining example to very many.

Make sure to follow our dedicated section for rolling information in English on coronavirus in Croatia.

As Novac/Barbara Ban writes on the 6th of March, 2020, behind the name T \ 'n \' D Web hides a young maths and computer science duo - Toni Borina and Damir Numic-Mesa, Croatian students. These two outstanding graduates from Pula High School facilitated the easier work of their professors, as well as their colleagues at the school, with their project, marking another incredible piece of innovation made in Croatia.

Working together with the mentorship of Professor Nikola Vujacic, in a mere two months, the students created a web application within the project "School in the Palm of your Hand", which has already come to life among high school students across Pula.

The Croatian students' product has only been ''out'' for a month, and it is already widely used by professors and students because it provides them with the necessary information about the school's schedule and free classrooms in a very simple way. It can also be used to send SMS messages to inform people of all the important things that are happening in the school.

''School in the Palm of your Hand'' is a project consisting of four websites that make it easier for students and professors in their every day ''school lives''. The app can be used to create approvals for extracurricular activities, for example. There is also an interactive school schedule that can be used to search for schedules by professor, classroom, class and subject, and you can also choose to search for schedules in free classrooms that are available for a lecture,'' explains Damir.

He says that in conjunction with the technology giant from Vodnjan, Infobip, they also created an SMS notification system that allows students to easily send messages.

''This system may, for example, be used by the headmaster to inform students about the absence of a professor and who is giving a lecture or the like, which students wouldn't otherwise be able to find out. At the same time, there is a fourth webpage within the app, the Search Encyclopedia, expressed through the Google Custom Search platform, which allows you to search for specific terms or pages,'' the student says.

The application is available on the Internet at www.skolanadlanu.hr and can also be downloaded on mobile phones. Consideration is also being given to having it placed on the Google Play Store. Toni explains that the Croatian students came up with this idea because their school is big and it often happens that students waste a lot of time finding, for example, one of the professors they need.

''Often there was confusion about the replacements of professors, so we'd not know if there would be substitutes and who would hold our classes,'' says Toni, who has been working with Damir since the beginning of their high school days.

The app is yet another example of innovation not only made in Croatia, but made by Croatian students, and has been in use since February the 7th, 2020.

''It took us two months to complete the project, and the learning of programming languages alone ​​took place as part of a one-year workshop conducted Istria County's Technical Culture Community. The process of learning programming languages ​​has been a long one, in fact, you're constantly learning because you can never actually know everything, and then you start working slowly. We really worked hard on the application every day,'' Damir notes.

They say that they have tested it out on their colleagues, but also that they are constantly improving it.

''Applications should always be improved. For example, we noticed that the search was slow, so we sped it up,'' Toni points out.

Otherwise, the application, after being developed, was submitted to the county IT and software development competition, where it rightly earned 95 percentage points and won first place, and later it was submitted to a national competition, where the project was rated at 61.5 percent points. But for these young IT creatives who would like to enroll in Zagreb's FER after high school, this isn't the first project of its kind. During the last school year, they tried to programme another platform to help the school.

''Eight icons - The first project we did, was part of a larger team of eight students. The result of this project can be seen at the entrance to our school, at the info point. It has eight icons that make it easy to notify and display current information about school activities, schedules, and more. It's a little bit like this app,'' Damir tells us.

Also interesting was the students' collaboration with the wildly successful Infobip, which came about because some former high school students from Pula also work there.

''We needed the equipment and that's how we started working with Infobip. For example, they bought us computers for the library and donated some of their old equipment to us. Then we decided it would be good for the students to see how that company functions. And so it all started. Then it spread to other schools, but we were the pioneers in this,'' says the students' mentor, Vujacic.

For more applications, products and innovation made in Croatia, follow our dedicated Made in Croatia page.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 12th of February, 2020, Croatia's highly successful Infobip has started the construction of its third campus in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, according to initial announcements, will be larger than the one in Vodnjan and will gain on the largest, which is being built in Zagreb. The leading Croatian software company has purchased four building lots covering a total area of ​​4230 square metres at the location of Šip.

The value of the contract is 503,000 BAM, which is approximately HRK 1.9 million. Although the price of construction land in Bosnia and Herzegovina is lower than it is in Croatia, the plans Infobip has in the capital of the neighbouring country are no less ambitious than those in Croatia. The Sarajevo campus will cover an area of ​​8500 square metres. Currently, the company employs more than 160 professionals in this city, and with this investment, it will be able to offer jobs to more than 500 people in one place.

According to these indicators, it is the largest IT investment in Bosnia and Herzegovina in decades. Infobip has already begun the process of choosing an architectural solution for the new campus. It is said to have been opened to some of the best regional players and should be done within the next two months. Although it is unknown how much the total investment in Sarajevo will be, for comparison, the new campus in Zagreb is reportedly worth an investment totalling HRK 120 million.

The expansion in Sarajevo is part of Infobip's growing regional positioning, strengthening the base in preparation for the New York Stock Exchange in the next few years, in line with announcements made by Silvio Kutic, co-founder and CEO.

According to Poslovni Dnevnik, as part of the reorganisation, Infobip has decided to transform its campus in Vodnjan into its global headquarters, a new campus in Zagreb into a business headquarters for Europe, while the campus in Bosnia and Herzegovina will become the headquarters for operations in the Middle East and North Africa, the so-called MENA region. Dino Ibrahimovic, director of the MENA region at Infobip, says that in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the company's plans are to significantly increase its number of employees in line with the company's plan to create 1,000 new jobs globally in 2020.

He stresses that the Sarajevo campus, with more than 500 employees, will become one of Infobip's key development centres and a strategic hub for the MENA region.

"Because our current business premises aren't big enough for us, building a modern IT campus for all employees in the wider Sarajevo area is a logical step in view of the projected growth of our office," says Ibrahimovic. The first Infobip campus "Pangea", the one in Vodnjan, whose opening three years ago was attended by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, covers a total of 17,000 square metres, and in its available office space, it has a capacity of 5600 square metres intended for two hundred employees.

The Alpha Centauri campus in Zagreb, which is being built rapidly in St. Klara, and which will be the largest, will cover 20,000 square metres and will have as much as 11,900 square feet of office space on seven floors.

According to Infobip, construction is progressing as planned. The ground floor is finished and the second floor is currently being completed. The Alpha Centauri campus is expected to receive its first tenants by the end of this year.

"There are no further plans for the construction of new campuses in the region, but there are plans to increase the capacity of all our offices in Croatia - in Vodnjan, Zagreb, Rijeka and Split," Infobip explained.

Commenting on the construction of a campus in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dino Ibrahimovic said that the Sarajevo municipality of Centar showed the highest level of willingness of all levels of government in the country to support IT companies.

"Our long-term goal is to retain young talent in Bosnia and Herzegovina and we're aware that a job alone is not enough for that purpose, but we as a company will provide a secure workplace, certain benefits and working conditions that are comparable to the world's largest companies," says Ibrahimovic.

Globally, Infobip is undergoing a major expansion, aiming to double its headcount by 2022 to 4,500, with the highest growth expected in the entire region. The company has so far opened 67 offices on all continents except Antarctica. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, besides Sarajevo, a brand new Infobip office has recently been opened in Tuzla, employing 25 professionals, and it plans to increase that figure to 80.

Nedzad Ajnadzic, Mayor of the Sarajevo Centar Municipality, expressed his satisfaction that they had completed their administrative work, followed by the issuance of a planning and construction permit.

"I have high expectations of this project and my opinion is that the IT Park is one of the largest development projects for this local community and beyond," says Ajnadzic. He added that all engineers of the future IT park will also be offered the opportunity by his municipality to resolve housing issues through the purchase of an apartment with an interest free loan.

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

When it comes to Croatian companies, there tends to be an enormous amounts of excellent ideas and promising businesses but the state tends to put up too much red tape for them to succeed. Croatia doesn't provide a business friendly atmosphere, nor does it handle investments well, and as for entrepreneurs, they often feel that their only hope is to leave. Infobip from Vodnjan, however, isn't one of them.

We've written extensively about Infobip and how this company has beaten the odds and managed to grow to proportions I imagine not even its founder, Silvio Kutic, could have imagined. This Croatian company has only gone from strength to strength and it seems that that trend isn't about to alter anytime soon.

As Novac writes on the 22nd of January, 2020, the Vodnjan-based IT giant, Infobip, is planning to hire about a thousand new employees, expanding further globally after reaching the impressive figure of 3,000 employees, and ending last year with 2,100 employees.

In addition, by the end of this year, the company expects the completion of the city campuses in Sveta Klara in Zagreb, which should accommodate as many as 650 Infobip employees.

According to a report from Lider.hr, Infobip also announced its plans for placement on the world famous New York Stock Exchange, further development of technological solutions and products in the direction of ''conversational messages'' and ''conversational commerce'', and they just launched their own ''chatbot'' platform, which took six months to develop in total.

Infobip's production will soon be offered to customers who will be able to create ''chatbots'' on our platforms. We aim to get feedback so they can leverage the products, which is in line with our customer-centric strategy. In 2020 we will continue to focus on artificial intelligence and its implementation in our decisions,'' said Tomislav Smiljanić, senior product manager at Infobip.

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

Croatian companies face many obstacles when doing business, and the state tends to be the one throwing barriers up left right and centre, often forcing companies to relocate to other EU countries in which the situation for entrepreneurs and doing business is much more favourable.

While running a business in Croatia is far from easy, there are exceptions to the general rule (or at least the general rule which continues to be the most commonly held belief among Croats), that nobody can succeed here unless they're well connected or members of a certain political party. Infobip, a truly impressive Croatian software company which draws its roots not from Zagreb but from Vodnjan in Istria, is just one fine example of what can be done in Croatia, and done well, with patience, dogged determination and a clear view.

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 17th of November, 2019, in the very centre of Dalmatia, the remarkable Croatian company Infoip has initially employed eighteen experts.

The ever-impressive Infobip, otherwise the largest Croatian software company, has now opened an office in Split, the new Split premises mark the company's fourth office to open in the Republic of Croatia, making it the 66th in the world. Infobip's offices are located across Croatia, and in addition to the newly opened Split office, their offices can be found in Vodnjan, Zagreb and Rijeka. The company has, as stated, initially employed eighteen IT professionals in Split and the new office has become part of Infobip's development hubs. The company otherwise employs more than 2,000 workers in total.

Izabel Jelenić, co-founder and CTO of Infobip, says they want to give talented people in Split the opportunity to work on global innovation.

''After Vodnjan, Rijeka, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Tuzla, Pune (India) and St. Petersburg (Russia), the office in Split has joined the network of hubs in which we develop communication solutions,'' concluded Jelenić.

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

Infobip, a truly impressive company from Vodnjan, Istria, is continuing to go from strength to strength alongside the likes of Rimac Automobili - could it find itself on the New York Stock Exchange and go down in Croatian economic history?

As Poslovni Dnevnik/VL/Zoran Vitas writes on the 14th of November, 2019, the Croatian publications Poslovni Dnevnik and Vecernji List are awarding the most prestigious business awards in the country this year yet again.

The title of Economist and Economic Event of the Year will be awarded to the most successful and strongest business person and business event in Croatia, whose business or influence crucially affected the economic trends in the country, and also improved the established economic and social climate.

Although it isn't being talked about too much yet, the news that Vodnjan's incredible company Infobip could be listed on the New York Stock Exchange was one of the biggest pieces of economic news so far this year, and it's certainly news that has attracted the most attention, alongside Hyundai's massive investment in Rimac Automobili.

While it remains a pleasant piece of news, it is in actuality quite logical for Infobip to make an initial public offering that would finally push it towards gaining the title of Croatia's first ''unicorn'', a newer company worth more than 1 billion US dollars. It's been a while since all of that was first discussed, and that once very distant possibility has now steadily begun to take on a somewhat more palpable contour.

"We'll make an IPO decision in two years. This needs to be prepared for, it was only four months ago that we first employed a finance chief with a background in investment banking and corporate finance. For example, we've monitored transfer prices so far, and logistically we can pass the audit done by Ernst & Young for us, as we have 65 offices in countries around the world. However, starting this year only, we've started to use finance as a lever for the development of the company,'' Silvio Kutić, co-founder and CEO of Infobip, said in a recent interview with Poslovni Dnevnik.

For the first time since Infobip has existed, it has a Chief Financial Officer. The man in question is Mario Baburić, who has engineering experience in addition to vast experience in the world of finance. In the first interview he gave when he took up the position, back at the beginning of September, he revealed to Vecernji List that his main task was to provide a solid foundation for Infobip's IPO.

''IPOs may be the next phase, but before that, companies usually find a serious private investor who can acquire a minority stake by recapitalisation, and these funds will help us in the next two to three years to grow further.

We need some 12 to 24 months to prepare for IPOs. By carefully selecting investors with a good reputation, we will get an extra spring in our step in terms of our future plans for a stronger presence in the US and other markets. After that, we'd be ready for a campaign in about two years, that is, we could sort out a story like an IPO. The need for our services is growing, so we're also thinking about private capital to help us grow, and we are looking for a solution to that in the next few months. Internally, the finance department is now being strengthened in order to be ready for this possible IPO,'' Baburić said at the time.

Another high-profile person from the business world is engaged in preparing such ''gigs'' across the Atlantic in New York. This is Boris Nemšić, the former head of Vip, later Mobilkom, and then CEO of the consulting company Delta Partners in Dubai. He is now head of the Infobip Advisory Board.

"I'm going to focus on the bigger picture, but also on managing the company so that, if we choose to do so, we're ready for potential foreign investors," Nemšić told Bloomberg, one of the world's most influential business portals, which closely follows the activities around this remarkable company from Vodnjan, Istria.

''The fact that everything surrounding this is being taken very seriously has been confirmed by the involvement of a commercial bank in America. It is of interest to many of the world's most renowned investors in the industry. Of course, when choosing a future investor, we need to look at what's best for us, not only the price of money and valuation, which is of course important, but how to get an adequate partner who will further help us with their advice and experience,'' they say from Infobip.

''If such a partner may already have had a similar company in his portfolio and helped it to enter the New York Stock Exchange, then there are people who can help us further with that experience. Our owners know very well how the business and the company are developing, which is why we're only talking about a minority stake because we already have quality leadership. The investment bank we've engaged in this process is Citi,'' Mario Baburić told Vecernji List in early September this year.

It is quite obvious that when it comes to the Infobip IPO, it will be a unique but also a turning point for the Croatian economy as a whole. At that point, should it come, Croatia will have a confirmed global player with solid roots in the largest market - the US market - in the most competitive sector of them all.

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

As Glas Istre/Lara Bagar writes on the 10th of November, 2019, the old saying goes that the grass is greener on the other side. It's always interesting to how our own grass is when compared to that of other people, at least in their opinion. Istria has become a somewhat desirable location for life and work, at least in comparison to much of the rest of Croatia, but how do foreign workers perceive it?

How does Vodnjan's ''grass" look to people from elsewhere, that is, how do they perceive it and in what way is it greener? For the answer to such a question, it was enough to head to Vodnjan, to an incubator of knowledge and a proverbial melting pot of different nationalities from here in Europe and far beyond it - Russians, Colombians, Filipinos, Brits, Serbs, Bosnians… The whole world seems to have gathered in Vodnjan.

"Think globally, act locally" could be, if it isn't already, the ''slogan'' of the largest IT giant in Infobip's home region of Istria.

The IT giant from Vodnjan, Istria, is a real miracle, especially in Croatian terms where obstacles are set up every step of the way when it comes to creating a business. Infobip isn't only a leader when it comes to IT and in an economic sense, but also in a social one.

While we all constantly have to sit and listen to the ghastly numbers of young, talented people leaving Croatia and heading to other, more prosperous EU countries, the story with Infobip is completely different. People from all over the world come to to Istria, more precisely to Vodnjan, and there are quite a few who switch their lives across millions of cities by deciding to stay, live and work in Istria.

Infobip seems to be on another planet, in another time zone, maybe even in another dimension when you compare it with a lot of the depressing statistics and figures across the country. In just a few years, a company with 2,000 employees, branches in 40 countries and 65 offices around the world has become a desirable place to work just like London, Berlin or any other major European city.

Just how do these foreign nationals who have chosen to make their lives in Istria view Vodnjan, Istria, and indeed life in Croatia in general?

Everyone came to Vodnjan primarily for business, and some brought their hearts with them too, that is, they had fallen in love with Croats. In the first case, Buje became home for Francisca Riverosa Fialla from Colombia.

"My wife and I lived in Barcelona and at one point we decided we had to be closer to one of our families. And Croatia, of course, was closer. I contacted Infobip from Barcelona, ​​applied for the job, the Kutić brothers interviewed me, I got the job and we decided to move,'' Francisco tells of his arrival in Istria five whole years ago.

What it was like to come to Buje after living in enormous cities like Bogota and London is the first question that arises.

"After living in Bogota and London, I came to Buje, a place with a thousand inhabitants. If I'd ended up here in my twenties, I'd have gone crazy," he joked. "But now, at the age of 38 and with a two-year-old child, living in a house with a garden and seven different trees is totally up my street. I'm an engineer during the week and I enjoy working around the house here in Buje during the weekends. It's wonderful, and living in such a small environment completely suits me and my wife, who runs the NTC program for children in Buje. For me, this is a life-long journey,'' states Francisco, who still has to travel 75 kilometres to reach his workplace at Infobip.

''It's twice the amount of time it took to get to my old job in the Colombian capital. That's a big advantage. But the biggest barrier seems to be the language. My family speaks ''Istrian'', and so do I.'' He is tormented by his lack of Croatian because he speaks English at work and Spanish and Italian at home, giving him little chance to practice.

"It isn't impossible to learn, but it is difficult. The language is difficult and the Croatian bureaucracy is a katastrofa (disaster),'' states Francisco in Croatian. With Croatian, when you love something or it bothers you, then you seem to learn the right word!

The Croatian mentality is also different - it's more peaceful and withdrawn. He himself says that warm southern blood distinguishes Latin Americans from Europeans.

"In Colombia, everyone is talking all the time, they're always loud and social. It's different here. People have a smaller circle of friends,'' concludes Francisco who switched Bogota and London for Buje, Istria.

Make sure to follow our dedicated lifestyle page for much more.

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 8th of August, 2019, there have been stories of this Croatian company being funded with investment capital, especially since its formal global headquarters are in London, but this has always been strongly denied by Infobip. However, they have now confirmed that they were constantly receiving offers from various corporations for takeovers.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Infobip is changing its investment policy. This Croatian startup, founded by Silvio Kutić, Roberto Kutić and Izabel Jelenić, no longer hides the fact that it is interested in investment, and the main topic of concern in the industry is whether or not Infobip is worth more than one billion US dollars already.

Although there are those who are firmly convinced in that, the fact is that this still remains entirely unknown. Several people have claimed that Infobip is already worth more than one billion US dollars, but nobody wants to speak publicly about it.

It would be logical for investors to be the ones to answer this question, as in the case of Rimac Automobili after its last investment. Mate Rimac said at the time: "... as far as ownership is concerned, I now hold 47.7 percent. The Chinese Camel group holds 14 percent, Hyundai holds 11 percent, Porsche holds 10 percent, Kia holds 2.7 percent, and the rest are smaller shares which investors so far from 2012 and 2013 hold.''

From this, it can be calculated that Hyundai and Kia invested their 80 million euros into Rimac's company with a valuation of 584 million euros, or 4.3 billion kuna. In other words, investors have confirmed that Rimac's company is halfway to becoming a startup worth at least one billion US dollars in market value. In Croatia, so far, at least publicly, there are no startups which carry such value.

A number of other Croatian startups which have good foundations and could one day reach such high valuations. The latest in the series is ReversingLabs, which just won the Black Unicorn Award in Las Vegas, this company isn't worth one billion US dollars, but its business moves do reveal what the plan is for this high-tech company from Zagreb.

There is a lot of ambition in many Croatian startups, such as Tolar and Zizoo, as well as Agrivi, Altpro, Bulb Technologies, Electrocoin, Include, Gideon Brothers, Nanobit, Oradian, Photomath (and Microlink), Visage Technologies and Zipato.

The above list is certainly not complete, nor does it mean that all of their aspirations will be realised at the same time. But, for the development of the Croatian startup ecosystem, the next turning point will be the emergence of the first Croatian company to be worth one billion US dollars. After Microsoft bought the Estonian startup Skype for a dizzying 8.5 billion dollars, a lot has changed in that country, and with it, much more has now become possible.

Skype's founders and co-founders now have the capital and knowledge to be able to transfer that over into Estonia's local ecosystem and further accelerate its development to the point that the whole country has started to look more digital, making the Estonians the champions of the whole of the EU in that regard today.

From this perspective, it is good that a Croatian company worth one billion US dollars will finally emerge, regardless of whether it is Rimac Automobili or Infobip. While Rimac is steadily climbing towards this goal through genuine investor interest, Infobip is in a slightly different position. After all, two of the three founders are brothers (the Kutićs), but they are working to alter the ''family'' perception in the wider public. 

According to Silvio Kutić, who, in addition to being the co-founder, is also the CEO of this Croatian company, nfobip also transferred ten percent of its shares to its employees.

In addition, and they didn't want to announce which companies they were talking about, Infobip has partnered with almost every major internet company in the world, from Facebook and Uber and beyond. Infobip also has several times the revenue of Rimac Automobili.

This Croatian company has grown by 30 percent for two consecutive years, and on top of all that, it has been favoured to become the prime competitor by all business indicators by America's Twilio.

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

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 2nd of August, 2019, Infobip, a highly successful Croatian technology company that can boast of clients such as Uber Technologies Inc. and Burger King, is considering listing its shares on the New York Stock Exchange as it plans to expand its business across the Atlantic in the United States of America.

An IPO "is something we're talking about right now," stated Silvio Kutić, the co-founder and CEO of Infobip, during a phone interview. "We're constantly thinking about it and checking when we should go in this direction, maybe in the next few months, half a year, a year... a decision will be made,'' he noted.

This Croatian company has gone from strength to strength and provides corporations with the technology to send alerts to customers through various channels, such as WhatsApp or SMS. In March, the company announced that the world famous Uber is using its technology to mask contact information/data when drivers and those needing a ride communicate. The company's clients include giants like Vodafone Group Plc, Costco Wholesale Corp and Zendesk Inc.

Founded back in 2006, Infobip currently has approximately 1,750 employees who generated about 435 million euros (485 million US dollars) in revenue back in 2018, according to Kutić. Infobip's employees own ten percent of the shares of the company, and the rest are shared by the three founders of the company.

"In the last two years, we have had about thirty percent of annual revenue growth, and this year we're accelerating," Kutić said. The demand for alerts sent by SMS "continues to grow like crazy around the world."

The sector is highly fragmented. Infobip has strong domestic rivals in countries such as China and Brazil, but Twilio Inc. is currently the largest over in the United States.

The company has stepped up its presence in recent months in the United States by opening up an Infobip office in New York, which is the second in the country, after acquiring the property from Ericsson AB.

"We're now preparing for our big push," Kutić said.

"Today, about 35 percent of our revenue comes from American customers, but these are digital Silicon Valley businesses that do business with us around the world. There is much more liquidity and better exposure for IT companies on US stock exchanges. That would be the crown of our business," concluded Kutić when discussing Infobip's potential next moves.

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