January the 3rd, 2023 - The Croatian company Protostar Labs, a young company from Belisce, recently presented and delivered its high-tech product called the Protostar Vision Box to its client.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Josipa Ban writes, the aforementioned is a solution that they have been developing for a year now, and which enables visual inspection of products on production lines. Its application, as explained by Filip Novoselnik, the co-founder and director of the Croatian company Protostar Labs, is extremely broad, but they're still primarily focused on industrial production in larger series.

The delivery of the Vision Box is just the beginning of the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision technology that they've been busy developing, which contributes to the automation of industrial production. It contributes because it enables the quick and early detection of any product defect. In addition, it gives the company that uses it an in depth insight into all sorts of data and statistics via the Protostar cloud platform, which enables the better organisation of the overall production process.

All of these advantages will soon be made available to more companies as the Croatian company Protostar Labs is working on the development of two more versions of the Vision Box. The smaller one, which consists only of a small computer with a camera, will be intended for wider application because it has all the characteristics of a surveillance camera, only this one will be smart. According to Novoselnik, the bigger one will be a more sophisticated version of the existing Vision Box.

Both new versions should be ready and on the market in three to six months, and with their launch, the founder of the Croatian company Protostar Labs expects to increase the company's general level of competitiveness and ensure access to demanding foreign markets.

What is particularly interesting about this young but promising company from Belisce, whose development office is located in Osijek, is that, in addition to solutions intended for the automation of the "terrestrial" industry, they also develop solutions for the one in space, something that hardly any company in Croatia can boast of.

Ultimately, the universe and its puzzles were the reason why the Croatian company Protostar Labs was founded. The idea, as recalled by Novoselnik, was born in the Anonymus Astronomical Society in Valpovo. "Back in 2019, the informal founding assembly of Protostar Labs was held there, and the name of the company was inspired by space and means 'a star in the making'. Our initial idea was to profile ourselves in the long term as a company that develops solutions for the space industry, but at the time it seemed an unlikely feat, so we decided to start with what was more attainable for us, which is the domestic industry, which really lacks high-tech solutions that facilitate, speed up, and ultimately optimise the production process. We started with the development of a system based on a combination of cameras and sensors and AI algorithms, the goal of which is visual inspection of products,'' stated Novoselnik.

Even though it seemed almost impossible just three years ago, the Croatian company Protostar Labs, which is still a small company that started its journey with only two employees, and today already has fifteen of them, is proof that with knowledge, persistence and creativity, anything is possible, even entering the space industry. They managed to do that last year when they passed the competition of the European Space Agency (ESA).

For ESU, as Novoselnik pointed out, they developed a software package that enables the faster and simpler development of solutions, i.e. models of AI and computer vision with the aim of their easier implementation on hardware devices with limited resources.

"Their application, on the one hand, is intended for satellite systems because satellites, which have limited capacity, process huge amounts of data that isn't very easy to send back home to Earth. Our solution should enable data processing to be transferred to a satellite and only data of interest should be sent back to Earth," he explained, adding that a prototype has been developed, but the solution is still in the early stages of development and still needs to be tested. They have already tested it out on drones, and the plan is to do the same on a stratospheric balloon at an altitude of 20 kilometres. ESA will decide whether or not to test it on a satellite, and if that doesn't happen, the system they developed will be used here on Earth.

"Our idea is to develop systems that have a dual application and that high technologies that are designed and made for space can also be applied in industry," Novoselnik pointed out. In addition to all of the above, the Croatian company Protostar Labs is in the running for another project for ESA, in cooperation with the Zagreb-based FER, with which they are developing a module for the characterisation of light pollution on Earth. "We applied for the competition and we're waiting for the results,'' Novoselnik said briefly.

This small but doggedly determinted company from Belisce therefore develops numerous projects, and last year it all began to bring in financial benefits, as their income grew by as much as 730 percent compared to 2020, to an impressive 2.71 million kuna. This is encouraging indeed for such a young company that is still, to a large extent, focused on investing in the technology they're developing, not to mention the fact that they mostly financed this development with their own funds and those from the EU.

Small companies developing here in Croatia unfortunately, according to Novoselnik, are forced to spend too much time trying to deal with formalities and bureaucracy, and this comes to the fore especially with EU projects.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

December the 13th, 2022 - The Croatian startup SimpleMatic has successfully designed a solution for one of the most irritating issues still faced by a large domestic pharma company.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Josipa Ban writes, JGL, the very well-known Croatian pharmaceutical company, continues to face a very specific problem when it comes to the production process. Every four hours, as was explained by Mate Poropat, the director of JGL's pharmaceutical-technological operations, they have to change the sedimentation plates in the monitoring procedure. This process is still done manually and costs the company a lot of money and time.

"We want to automate that process in a simple way," said Poropat. Thanks to the Manufacturing Innovation Challenge (MIC) project, which is organised and implemented by the EIT Manufacturing Hub Croatia, they didn't have to wait very long for a solution to come running along. The Croatian startup SimpleMatic, consisting of Daniela Jaksic and Marko Brkljacic, came up with and designed a solution to this issue in a mere few weeks.

"Our solution is of great importance on a global level, because almost all pharmaceutical companies have to try and cope with the problem of manually changing sedimentation plates," explained Jaksic from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry.

Knowledge and innovation

This example clearly shows how thin the line can be between a problem and a solution. However, it is only thin if the problem falls into the right hands - from industry to those of science. And they were brought together by the EIT Manufacturing Hub, one of ten such hubs in Europe whose goal is to create a network of European innovators in the field of manufacturing and to position Europe as a world leader in innovation in industry.

The EIT Manufacturing HUB in Croatia consists of the Centre for Research, Development and Technology Transfer of the University of Zagreb and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Shipbuilding. They implement a wide number of projects, including MIC, which connects manufacturing companies and startups.

"One of the key problems with startup teams is that they create products for which there's no market. At the same time, manufacturing companies have to face real challenges. It was logical to connect them both,'' explained Miro Hegedic, the co-coordinator in the Manufacturing Hub and an assistant professor at FSB.

Thanks to this project, JGL came to the solution they had been looking for for a long time, and the Croatian startup SimpleMatic got the opportunity to implement their innovation and develop globally. Another award-winning team that participated in the MIC competition - Integrators - who designed a solution for the giant company Podravka and their optimisation of the size of their production orders, also has such an opportunity on its hands.

More money

Those teams, awarded with 10,000 kuna, are two of the nine that participated in the competition. "We want to encourage the development of innovations through projects, including in regard to this competition," Hegedic pointed out.

The Republic of Croatia, which is unfortunately at the very back of the European Union (EU) in terms of innovation, will have a lot of work to do in this field. However, Vesna Petrovic, the co-coordinator of the EIT Manufacturing Hub Croatia from CIRTT, pointed out that she is satisfied with the positive energy she's felt.

"Everyone would like greater access to financing sources," she concluded.

For more, make sure to follow our business section.

December the 8th, 2022 - Croatian innovator Albert Gajsak's product, which is made right here in Croatia, has ended up across the pond on the shelves of American stores.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, young Croatian innovator Albert Gajsak of Circuitmess was a recent guest on N1 television where he talked about breaking into the challenging American market of educational toys. This rather remarkable entrepreneur explained how his Croatian product ended up on the shelves of one of the largest US retail chains of all - Walmart.

"We produce electronic devices that serve to educate children, such as legos with electronics. So, people receive it when it's disassembled and have to put the toy back together, while the children get to learn something about electronics along the way," explained Gajsak.

One of the products that will be on shelves across the USA is Cheter. "It's a set of devices that look like small mobile phones, through which children can send messages to each other, but in doing so they create their own "network" while the kids learn a thing or two about encryption," stated Gajsak. When parents buy it for them, it comes in parts and then the children have to put it together themselves.

"The children can exchange messages between two or more devices and connect to a chat group. But the point is that it can be connected to a computer and programmed, which is what our application (app) exists for," he said.

Croatian innovator Albert Gajsak produces his devices right here at home in Croatia, and said that it's great that he not only produces it here, but also designs the hardware, software, appearance and packaging within Croatian borders as well, making it a true Croatian-made product.

He explained how Walmart contacted him during a campaign, adding that it took three years to assemble so many devices to enter the American market and explained that he had to solve a lot of administration issues and logistical problems in order to be able to place the product successfully on the American market.

"It's interesting to note that our campaign was covered by numerous American media such as Forbes, and that's probably when they saw our product in Walmart, which caught their attention," explained the talented Croatian innovator Albert Gajsak.

"The whole point of our brand is that we create different electronic devices that teach children about all kinds of different topics, from wireless communication, computer vision and so on," he explained, adding that the plan is now to continue cooperation with Walmart. The US retail price is otherwise, $99, a price recommended by Walmart itself.

He explained that they manage to withstand the shortage of chips and semiconductors on the market and added that the problem is, as it is with most other companies at this moment in time, finding labour.

"It's always difficult to find people who are professional, hardworking and want to work, but we do manage somehow. The best thing is that we have full creative control over the production process. From the idea to the final product itself, it's all our own,'' noted Gajsak, who added that he tries to be competitive with the wages he pays his staff in order to attract good employees.

For more, check out our business section.

December the 6th, 2022 - The remarkable Croatian inventor Mate Rimac has rather unsurprisingly been nominated as businessman of the year by both Poslovni Dnevnik (Business Diary) and Vecernji list.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/VL/Tanja Ivancic writes, the expert jury nominated Croatian inventor Mate Rimac for businessman of the year this year, and even more is expected in the future from the young leader of the Rimac Group, who managed to create yet another Croatian unicorn through persistent work and dogged determination against everything thrown at him.

For now, Rimac can certainly boast of having produced an incredible hypercar – recently declared the fastest electric car in the entire world, which also holds the record for the fastest acceleration of any car. Namely, the Nevera reached an impressive speed of 412 km/h, which makes it the fastest electric production car on the face of Earth, while the record for acceleration was 8.582 seconds per quarter mile, which was set back in 2021.

The Nevera electric car is otherwise Rimac's premium product that has since entered into small-scale production. Back in June this year, the company revealed the release of the first Nevera on the roads, which was fitted with 000 plates and wasn't for sale, and then, they said, deliveries to clients from around the world began.

They also emphasised from the Rimac Group that the production of the Nevera required five years of development and testing, equal to an incomprehensible 1.6 million hours of deep research.

Along with the production of the stunning Nevera at the Jankomir plant in Zagreb, what marked this year for Croatian inventor Mate Rimac was the investment round that he closed back in March and the start of the construction of the Rimac campus in Sveta Nedelja. In June, Mate Rimac reported that the Rimac Group had successfully collected 3.78 billion kuna or 500 million euros in investment round D, which brought the market value of the Rimac Group company to over 2 billion euros in total.

The key new investors were SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, with participation from existing shareholders of the Rimac Group, including Porsche and Investindustrial. All of the investors now have a share in the Rimac Group, while Mate Rimac himself, the company's founder and executive director of the company, still owns the largest share of all.

"It's a total of more funds than we've ever previously raised, so it's really a huge thing for us,'' Rimac emphasised at the time, noting that they had five times more interested investors than they planned in terms of the raising of the money in this round, and as for the IPO, that is, public share offerings, they are thinking about it in a longer-term framework when the company becomes more predictable, so somewhere in the range of three to five years, according to Rimac.

This new investment is being used to continue the company's growth, increase production capacity and allow for additional employment. The capital raised will primarily be used for the further development of Rimac Technology in the field of large series production for global car manufacturers.

It should be known that Rimac Group is, namely, a holding company and consists of two companies; Bugatti Rimac, in which the Rimac Group has a majority share of 55 percent, while the other 45 percent is owned by Porsche, and Rimac Technology, which is 100 percent owned by the Rimac Group.

The company Rimac Technology is known as a technological partner of numerous global automotive manufacturers who choose it for the development and production of their high-performance battery systems, electric powertrains, electronic systems and user interface components. Mate Rimac then pointed out that the company has ambitious growth plans for the next two years, in addition to the issue of employees and the opening of new offices. They're present in four locations in Zagreb, and they also have offices in Split and Osijek, as well as elsewhere in Europe - in Germany, France and England.

The construction of the upcoming Rimac Campus in Sveta Nedelja is currently delayed, but considering the situation on the market, the deadlines set for it previously remain acceptable, and the plant should be ready in the next few months, with the administrative building and other facilities likely to be ready over the next year or so.

''It's a big investment and will be the largest industrial building in all of Croatia, spanning 100,000 square metres, and I believe that everything is progressing according to plan, and we're already planning the construction of Campus 2,'' Rimac reported back in June.

The Rimac Group employs a total of more than 1,500 people, with 500 of them working at Bugatti Rimac, 150 of them in France, while 1,000 people are employed at Rimac Technology. That's what the official figures from June of this year read. In the first half of this year, they employed 300 people, and by the end of the year they planned to employ another 700. As Mate Rimac wrote in a recent post on social media, they currently have a total of 2,000 employees.

Croatian inventor Mate Rimac otherwise started his business literally from his garage and back in 2009 he founded Rimac Automobili, continuing at this pace, doubling the number of employees, attracting strong investments, and breaking records and production despite the difficulties he faced. It's safe to say that the future should not be a problem for the talented and innovative Croatian inventor Mate Rimac.

For more, follow our business section.

November the 29th, 2022 - The Croatian startup qSoft has worked alongside multiple other agencies and bodies and created a platform which works to uncover corruption, stating that the situation is far worse than we think.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, in cooperation with ICCrA - the Institute for Compliance, Criminal Compliance and Anti-Money Laundering, the WRAP (Whistleblower Reporting App) application was launched to achieve greater efficiency in the organisation of business, which serves both to detect and correct anomalies from the corruption zone, but also to improvement of work processes, regardless of the size of entities, type of ownership and industries.

How important WRAP now is for the overall Croatian economy and the domino effect in which whistleblowers massively report abuse and corruption was explained by ICCrA president Davor Iljkic, who is also the director of the Fraud Prevention Service at the Fund for the Reconstruction of the City of Zagreb, with previous experience of sixteen years with the Ministry of Interior (MUP) working on the detection of economic crime.

"Corruption is a vicious circle, and the situation is much worse than you think," claims Iljkic. This is confirmed by the results of the research of the International Association of Certified Fraud Investigators (ACFE) on the forms and types of fraud from 2014 and 2021, which show that the dominant forms are corruption and embezzlement of funds and fraud with financial statements, with the fact that 8 years ago 40% of detected cases were on the basis of a tip (TIP irregularity report), and in 2021, it stood at 42 percent.

"We need to strengthen the prevention and detection system, and WRAP can help with that," Iljkic believes.

The Croatian legislator also recognised that the system for the protection of whistleblowers needs to be strengthened. The new law on whistleblowers introduces the possibility that a professional, i.e. a third person from outside the organisation, can be appointed as a confidential person when establishing a channel for whistleblowers. Iljkic recommends this very solution in order to avoid a potential conflict of interest within an organisation itself in relation to the management body.

As far as WRAP is concerned, the application platform was born as an idea that integrates the aforementioned law, the EU ​​Directive 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and the Council on the protection of individuals reporting violations of EU law, and new obligations in the field of non-financial reporting (ESG) - environmental, social and personnel issues, as well as issues related to respect for human rights and the fight against corruption and bribery.

At that meeting, the Croatian startup qSoft, with headquarters in Zagreb and partner offices in Canada and Switzerland, decided to use these laws to help organisations become more efficient. Instead of just formally fulfilling obligations, a platform was created that contributes in various ways, including a modern version of business intelligence, to organisations with the aim of creating databases from which software analytics generate valuable information, on the basis of which business management can react in time.

"Organisations rely on a real wealth of data that they don't actually process themselves, and as it's dead capital for them, we see this as our greatest advantage. In its application, the platform hasn't been limited by industry, nor by the size of the entity in question," says Drazen Mrkonjic, the director of the Croatian startup qSoft. They started, he explains, from a process to which technology is adapted, and each entity can then use the solution within its own processes.

"It's important to obtain an effect in terms of meeting legal obligations, for which the information reported is needed. It's motivating for the employee that they can report irregularities without needing to suffer any consequences as a result, with guaranteed anonymity,'' states Mrkonjic.

Similar software services are being developed in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, meaning that this country and the Croatian startup qSoft is once again among the first EU member states in terms of the application being offered. The coronavirus crisis, the war in Ukraine and now inflationary pressures also pushed things along a bit, but so did Croatia's entry into the OECD.

"To provide an additional benefit for any company, we've also built risk management into the application, which allows each application to be evaluated from the aspect of how it affects the business itself,'' says Mrkonjic, who has specialised in this field through 24 long years of work experience in process management.

For Croatia's impending membership of the OECD and the recommendations of the organisation for the improvement of corporate governance bodies in the state sector, WRAP is, he says, just what the proverbial doctor ordered because the state is the first to be invited to tackle this. The state must show - by example - how such laws are applied in the state sector, not only technologically, but also procedurally.

Even the results published by the US Government across the pond easily prove that it is possible to achieve great results with the use of such advanced solutions. Just a decade ago, through the motivation of people to report irregularities to state authorities, they saved about 35 billion dollars by preventing corruption in the USA. What are known as neural networks are what gives the Croatian startup qSoft and its platform the edge.

"A neural network is a combination of a large number of methods used for connecting data and inferring what kind of data that is in order to obtain information and be able to manage it properly. The management of each organisation can then get better acquainted with which segments of the organisation has anomalies occur that must be reacted to and corrected. With the help of a neural network, numerous scams would be detected and prevented,'' explains Mrkonjic.

The system, he adds, is intended for administrations that run operational businesses. It was created as a combination of analytics and reports, a type of modern BI that, as a platform, receives data from various sources, while this is a platform that integrates within the system and creates data because employees feel safe and their reports create data that is categorised into information. The Kaizen methodology designed in Japan to manage efficiency within organisations in order to achieve continuous success was used, and it involves all employees so that every day, regardless of where they might be, they think about how they can improve their work and workplace. Through this platform, employees are motivated to report everything to the central system in an easy way.

"Through these reports, you get information about how your organisation functions. With this technology, we want to motivate people to say something and to create a pool of data, which will ultimately give a picture of how the organisation functions,'' says Mrkonjic.

For those organisations that want to connect with other data sources, the Croatian startup qSoft's platform also provides such opportunities. For example, at the moment of detection of an irregularity for a certain account, data can be pulled from Fina for that particular company and the owner, and the situation can be looked into. The platform also connects to other sources, and the more sources there are, the clearer and faster the picture of where problems arise can be obtained, and this includes the Register of Real Owners and the Tax Administration. It is an ideal tool for domestic anti-corruption organisations like DORH, which has access to all data, but it can be more effective through data processing in the detection of white-collar crime.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

November the 26th, 2022 - Rijeka designer Marko Perozic has managed to make himself and the company he works for stand out to no less than John Malkovich, and his new play which recently premiered in Lisbon is putting creative, talented Croatian poster design on display.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the leading voice in this brand new play, which is actually an adaptation of the book "Nazi Literature in America", is played by the famous actor John Malkovich himself, and the plot is set in Chile, which was therefore the inspiration for this creative solution which the Rijeka designer Marko Perozic dealt with excellently.

''First of all, we had to do a little research on the play, the theme. We came to the point that it would be good to translate the Chilean flag and motif into direct communication on the poster itself,'' said Marko Perozic, the co-owner and creative director of a design and marketing agency from Rijeka.

The creation of the poster was ordered by an agency with which the company from Rijeka cooperates, which organises concerts, plays and represents famous people in marketing. One of them is John Malkovich who, out of three offered design solutions by the Rijeka company, chose this one.

''It was quite fun. It's nice when someone like him approves some kind of visual,'' Rijeka designer Marko Perozic pointed out for HRT.

It is otherwise one in a series of successful jobs done by this particular design agency from Rijeka, whose team consists of eleven creative people. They are engaged in marketing, the creation of design solutions and the branding of various products and services.

For more, make sure to keep up with our news section. For more on Croatian design, products, companies and entrepreneurs, make sure to check out our dedicated Made in Croatia section.

November the 17th, 2022 - The stunning Nevera made by Mate Rimac's company has become the fastest serial electric car on the planet, reaching an incredible 412 km/h.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Rimac's amazing Nevera has successfully reached a top speed of 412 km/h, making it the fastest serial electric car in the entire world. The record-breaking feat continues after Nevera's independently verified quarter-mile acceleration record of 8.582 seconds was set back in 2021, making it the fastest-accelerating production car in the world.

On this occasion, the Rimac team specifically looked for an oval-shaped track with straights long enough for the Nevera to reach its absolute top speed, and in the end they decided to verify the speed at the Automotive Testing Papenburg track in Germany. The track makes it possible to reach a speed of more than 400 km/h but this isn't a common sight because it is very rare that a car can even reach such a high speed.

The Nevera was placed in its so-called Top Speed ​​mode, creating an aerodynamic profile that balances both drag and downforce to ensure stability at high speeds. Fitted with road-legal Michelin Cup 2R tyres, and under the supervision of a Michelin technician who checked their condition, the Nevera was ready to set a real speed record.

At the wheel was Miroslav Zrncevic, the main test and development driver. His challenge was to achieve a perfect flat entry from the curved sections of the track to ensure the best possible opportunity to reach top speed. Coming out of the oval part of the track from the incline, traveling at around 250 km/h, Miroslav unleashed the full power of the Nevera to reach a speed of 412 km/h – exactly as simulated at the start of the Nevera project.

The posted speed therefore makes the Nevera the fastest production electric car on Earth, and it is the fastest speed ever recorded on Germany's Automotive Testing Papenburg circuit. The speed ​​was measured using the Racelogic V-Box, a high-precision GPS-based measuring device. A top speed of 412 km/h was the goal set by the Rimac team. It has now been reached.

Miroslav Zrncevic, chief driver for testing and development at Bugatti Rimac commented: "Travelling at a speed of 412 km/h means travelling at a third of the speed of sound. Achieving that speed in a road car is an incredibly complex process, but with the Nevera we managed to create a car that can cover long distances on a single charge, can tackle tight and twisty race tracks and can drift, as well as break acceleration records, reaching speeds of over 400 km/h. I've driven the Nevera since the beginning and to see the finished car as it is today is a really emotional moment. The most important thing I learned when driving at top speed was just how well-composed and stable the car was – which confirms that our aerodynamics and vehicle dynamics teams have done an incredible job.”

The Nevera is otherwise delivered to customers with a limited top speed of 350 km/h, but can reach a top speed of 412 km/h at special customer events with the support of the Rimac team and under tightly controlled conditions. Since the tires are under huge stress during such speeds, most precautions are aimed at keeping the tires properly fitted for it. The production of the Nevera is currently underway at Rimac's headquarters in Jankomir in Zagreb, and the first cars are already with their new owners around the world.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

November the 17th, 2022 - Just when you thought the remarkable Croatian technology company Infobip had done everything, it turns its hand to fashion. Techno hoodies, to be more precise.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Josipa Ban writes, many would assume that a successful combination of fashion and high technology is impossible, the two couldn't be more different, right? Wrong. Apparently. The Vodnjan-based Infobip has definitely made sure that technology has no limits, and also now that it can be combined with fashion. It recently presented its very own technologically advanced hoodies.

According to Infobip, these impressive techno hoodies were made in collaboration with IUTD Studios and a young Canadian designer with Croatian roots, Joshua Cirjak.

This leap into the world of street fashion for the most famous domestic cloud communication platform will certainly delight all lovers of hoodies, but at the same time disappoint them because the series is limited to only 300 pieces.

They decided on this move, they say from Infobip, because they want to strengthen their image among developers and in the wider technological community which is, rather surprisingly to many, somewhat dominated by hoodies of all things.

"Developers absolutely love hoodies, and almost every tech company has promotional items which belong to it. However, at Infobip we decided to make a limited edition fashion piece. In addition, we have added some advanced technology to the hoodies," said Ivan Burazin, a member of the Infobip Management Board for developer experience.

"Each hoodie also contains a special NFC chip that, when scanning it, gives the owner the possibility to own it in both of the parallel worlds in which we live - the physical one and the digital one," explained Joshua Cirjak, the creative director of IUTD Studios.

For more on Croatian companies and domestic creations, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

November the 15th, 2022 - The Croatian startup Green Energy Pal has taken the energy crisis into its own hands and developed something that will help individuals and companies alike to keep the numbers on their electricity bills down.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Josipa Ban writes, reducing energy costs due to the ongoing energy crisis is a priority for both households and companies. However, it is almost impossible to achieve savings, or energy efficiency, without undertaking any proper analysis of your consumption.

Ivan Pavic, one of the members of the Croatian startup Green Energy Pal, explains that although energy efficiency is talked about a lot, most people don't know how they can increase theirs properly and concretely.

"The reason lies in the fact that they don't have the basic prerequisite solved, that is, they don't know when they spend the most, how much that is and which devices cause that consumption. If we don't know that, how can we plan the actions that will have the most effect, and with the least investment, and then result in the reduction of consumption, and thus the electricity bill?'' asks Pavic.

Guided by this problem, four colleagues from FER, Ivan Pavic, Domagoj Badanjak, Alen Hrga and Ivan Sudic - developed Enpulse. It is, as Pavic explained, a private energy consultant which explains to users in a simple way how to achieve greater energy efficiency and how to reduce their electricity bills.

The reality that their idea and product on which they worked for 18 months to develop has great potential has also been shown by the fact that they were declared the best in the competition of startups from four countries of the region at the BASF Adriatic competition. With this, they entered the grand final of the BASF Innovation Hub 2022 as one of the six best solutions in the field of sustainable development in all of Central and Eastern Europe. This recognition, as expected, means a lot to them, and for several reasons.

"First of all, the expert jury, with excellent comments and questions, drew our attention to the segments of the product and its presentation on which we need to work further. Second, we gained recognition, which contributes to better marketing and the better acquisition of new customers, and in the end, the monetary award we received is very useful for us,'' stated Pavic, a member of the team at the Croatian startup Green Energy Pal.

However, there is still a lot of work ahead of the team who are developing their private energy consultant which is composed of three parts (an electricity metre on location, a backend system that stores data, and the user interface) in their spare time. Pavic explained that they have set themselves three goals - increasing the number of users, expanding the features of Enpulse and attracting investments.

"The increase in the number of users brings us financial support and enables us to develop new product features. Namely, a good part of our background tools are based on big data analysis and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, which also require a large amount of data. In other words, without new users and data, we can't even develop any new features," noted Pavic.

In addition to all of the above, for further growth and development, they will need a financial injection, so their plan is to find an investor. "We need an investment so that we can fully devote ourselves to product development and employ experts from various fields of IT, AI development, energy, sales and marketing," they announced from the Croatian startup Green Energy Pal.

The reactions to the product so far, which has only been on the market for a few months, are very positive. "The current users from the household category are very satisfied with the product," said Pavic, adding that, although their target group of users is both companies and households, they still give preference to companies.

"SMEs have significant energy costs, often accounting for 10 to 30 percent of their total costs. However, these costs aren't so high as to require extensive analyses by energy experts and consultants. This is precisely why we're developing a ''digital energy consultant'' which can give people advice on increasing energy efficiency at a very low cost. Our idea is that the investment in hardware companies pays off within one or several months, and that the monthly software subscription is only a small part of the savings achieved with our product,'' noted Pavic, adding that the use of their product in households is still less profitable than it is in companies.

It's worth mentioning that this is one of the very few startups that is actually benefiting from the energy crisis, although they didn't count on such a development when they started developing their product.

"Now we have more open potential collaborations with different companies. We assume that the demand for our product will grow significantly,'' concluded Pavic.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

November the 15th, 2022 - Brodosplit has built yet another large and valuable structure for a well known company, this time an innovative buoy for the collection of data out at sea.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, OCG-Data, an innovative buoy for collecting/recording biodiversity and metocean data, was successfully launched in the port of the Split's shipyard. It was built for the client Ocergie, the French branch of the American company Ocergy, Brodosplit announced. As they stated, with this project, the Split-based company is proving its capabilities on the wind offshore market, and it is realistic to expect the signing of new contracts for the construction of more new similar buoys and floating platforms soon, which implies the delivery of structures with an annual steel consumption of more than 100,000 tonnes in the period up to the year 2030.

The American Ocergy is otherwise a relatively young company, but according to its CEO Dominique Roddier, it wants to become one of the leaders in the field of offshore solutions for offshore wind farms (Floating Wind Foundation Design), which is "the result of the progress they have made over the last few years".

“This new innovative data collection buoy will gather information that will be used to better understand everything from wind turbulence to air and marine life around the project site. The pilot unit, part of Ocergie's ''Blue Oracle'' project (buoys with Lidar-optical radar and underwater equipment to assess ocean resources and characterise life in the environment) has received approval from the French authorities to be deployed at a site where several of the first floating wind power plants in the French region of Occitanie will be situated,'' they stated from Brodosplit.

The project itself is also supported by ADEME within the Investment Programme for the Future, and according to Roddier, this innovative buoy is important in multiple ways, both as an integral part of their wider business plan and as the first step in the development of the ''OCG-Wind FOW'' platform.

"We have an increasing number of pre-commercial projects before the year 2030, until the offshore wind industry implements large GW commercial FOW (Floating offshore wind) projects worldwide," said Roddier. The innovative marine data collection buoy made by Brodosplit will be deployed near one of the windy ''macro-zones'' in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of southern France.

"Despite the financial problems you've been facing at Brodosplit, we are extremely grateful for the full engagement of your team and employees, and very satisfied with the excellent work that Brodosplit has done in creating our platform. While you're discussing different business projects with investors, I believe that companies like Brodosplit can play a significant role in the energy transition and become a strong driver of the commercial development of the FOW industry, not only for projects here in the Mediterranean but throughout Europe," emphasised Roddier.

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