As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 2nd of August, 2019, since back in 2010, Kaspar Paper (Papir) has been manufacturing a very specific product in its production facility in the small, continental Croatian town of Prelog - sublimation paper that is used for colour transfer for various media.

They are the only manufacturer of this type of paper in the whole of the Republic of Croatia. Their expertise lies in manufacturing for transferring to polyester fabrics. This therefore enters into many worlds; marketing, fashion, sport, the furnishing of interiors, flags, and various posters and pictures. However, the application of this product is much wider, and can be found on rigid materials, on furniture, on skis and on metal surfaces. This wide range continues to grow year by year.

"We use our own development, employ professional and quality people who have been present in this segment for many years, which enables us to provide timely information and follow global trends in the industry. This also enables us to constantly develop our products to provide customers with the necessary quality," Davor Belić, the director of this Croatian company, explained.

Last year, they made more than 50 million kuna on various markets around the world, and their plan is to continue on with this double-digit growth, which they have said has gone smoothly so far. Here in Croatia, they cooperate with several customers, while the majority of the company's production is intended for export, and more than 95 percent of it leaves Croatian territory and goes abroad.

This Croatian company is also present at the world's leading fairs for the digital printing industry, and they strive to enter onto new markets year after year. "This year, we exhibited in Germany, France, Spain, and we're preparing for Mexico in late August, and in October, we're in the United States of America at the Dallas Fair.

In Asia, we have an office in Singapore in charge of the markets of Asia, the Pacific and the Americas, while in Slovenia, we manufacture base raw materials that are further completed in Prelog,'' Belić said.

The company currently employs 35 people, and Belić hopes that this figure will increase further by the end of 2020.

"For the time being, we're ready to respond to all market demands, but if the need arises, of course we will call for a job increase. We're doing well as far as the workforce is concerned, and we try to ensure our employees good working conditions, so that we we attract and retain them,'' he pointed out. In addition, this successful Croatian company has applied for the Internationalisation of small and medium-sized companies, phase two, which is being conducted by the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts.

The project, edtitled ''Strengthening Kaspar Paper through performances at foreign fairs'', is worth 1.1 million kuna, and the company received 895,000 kuna in European Union (EU) grants.

"As part of the project, we're planning and preparing, with the approval and signed co-financing contracts, to further increase our presence at leading industry fairs. The materials for FESPA Madrid 2020 are already underway," the director announced.

The experience so far, he stated, indicates that each additional presence brings results for this Croatian company, and with this project, he added, they are embracing new segments and wanting to introduce even more brand new products.

"I'd like to emphasise, instead of talking about concrete figures, that we're in the process of implementing new projects for equipping and development that will enable us to be even more competitive on demanding international markets," Belić pointed out.

Their goal, as they say, is to continue developing quality products, invest in the development, education and further training of employees, and keep up with global industry trends that will allow them to continue to grow and be recognised on the market.

"I'm proud to say that Kaspar Paper has positioned itself among the leading manufacturers of sublimation papers as a worldwide brand and is recognised as such among the leading global brands in the textile industry and beyond. Our aim is to raise that bar to an even higher level in the future," Davor Belić concluded.

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

Mate Rimac is by far Croatia's most popular success story. Rimac, born in Livno, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a shining star who has faced down the red tape and draconian anti-entrepreneur policies of the outdated Croatian state and managed to succeed beyond his own wildest dreams.

The founder and CEO of the celebrated Rimac Automobili, the factory of which is located in Sveta Nedjelja, just outside Zagreb, has enjoyed large investment from major firms in the automotive industry, including the likes of Porsche. In addition, he has succeeded in drawing the attention of would-be investors in the automotive industry back to Croatia, a country which had previously been almost entirely bypassed because of its infamous and bizarre love for bureaucratic processes and endless, senseless paperwork.

Mate Rimac proposed measures needed to attract the car industry to Croatia to the Croatian Government, who are of course more than ten steps behind this innovative and exceptionally talented entrepreneur, and the hope is that upon acting on Rimac's valuable advice, the days of the need for your mother's birth certificate translated and apostilled and then inspected and stamped by a state employed uhljeb just to be able to start a company will one day be over.

It seems that Mate Rimac is continuing to impress, and on the world stage. As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 31st of July, 2019, Rimac Automobili's founder Mate Rimac has found himself rightfully placed on the list of the most successful young entrepreneurs and future billionaires in Eastern Europe by the popular portal Slavorum.

Mate Rimac has thus found himself in the talented company of Branko Milutinović from Serbia, the founder of Nordeus, a mobile gaming development company that is considered one of the fastest growing in all of Europe. In addition to innovation, Milutinović is also known for his humanitarian work throughout Serbia.

In addition, there is Bulgaria's Konstantin Rangelov, and his company Dronamic allows air transport of products up to 350 kilograms in a short period of time.

Last on the list is Rostislav Knap from Poland, who as a great expert in finance and business launched the company CallPage, an online service that monitors user behaviour and activities on websites.

According to Slavorum, the business done by these entrepreneurs is always on the up and they could soon become big global players.

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

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 25th of July, 2019, the Saudi manufacturing plant for aluminium processing, Ma'aden, will apply the Croatian company 8Sigma's innovative software solution, called "manufacturing execution system" to digitise aluminium production for the automotive industry, the Croatian software company, which is based in Zagreb, proudly said on Thursday.

After a competition/tender which involved several respected and reputable companies, Ma'aden's management decided that the best in-class offer was precisely the one delivered by the Croatian company 8Sigma, whose experts developed their very own software solution and proved the level of their expertise by working on some of the most demanding projects in the field of the very complex metal industry, reads the statement.

As stated, co-operation with the Saudi Ma'aden Aluminum is part of the plan that includes a several million dollar investment and refers to the complete digitisation of production processes in a rolling mill where aluminium is processed for the automotive industry.

The cooperation agreement between the two companies was signed last week and refers to the first phase of introducing the 8Sigma's MES solution at the factory facility in Ras Al Khair, which should be completed and commissioned in 2020.

"By implementing MES, both management and the factory's employees will have a fast and accurate insight into all of the phases of the production processes in real time. MES will enable product tracking from the time the raw material enters the production process until the finished product is ready for delivery to the final customer.

Some of the most important benefits will be surely product quality growth, process optimisation, as well as tracking employee performance comparison and machine efficiency control, "said the statement.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia and business pages for more detailed information on Croatian companies, Croatian software solutions, Croatian innovation and much more.

Want to get a taste of the best of Međimurje? A brand new and totally unique shop in the continental Croatian town of Čakovec has recently been opened on Eugen Kvaternik Square (Trg) 5. The new sales space is called "Međimurski Štacun".

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 19th of July, 2019, the new store is a pleasant and charming Croatian shop, which boasts some agricultural-food products of about twenty local farmers in Međimurje on its shelves, writes Robert Radovic, with Zlatko Vrzan having taken photos for the local Međimurje portal Međimurske novine. They will offer over 150 types of seasonal products directly with local OPGs throughout the whole year.

This praiseworthy initiative which celebrates all things Međimurje was realised thanks to Valentina Hažić, the first president of the "Best of Međimurje" association, and all those who have been more than willing to place and sell their own products directly with their names and surnames proudly displayed on them.

These are OPG Hažić from Jurovčak, OPG Trupković from Novo Selo Rok, the Tomšić winery from Železna Gora, OPG Zadravec from Oporovac, OPG Biber from Podturen, the Preiner winery from Sveti Urban, OPG Lovrenčić from Palovac, and others. Other local Međimurje producers have also been invited to join this initiative.

Valentina, who has been in this field for a long time, recently opened her own company for business consulting and services in agriculture and tourism - AgroTina, which was incubated in the newly-restored attic of the TICM1 building. At the opening she said:

"Međimurski Štacun" is the first store of its kind in Croatia. It was completely sorted out by the producers themselves and this is the first organised supply chain in all of Croatia. We'd also like to thank Medjimurje County for supporting us in order for us to be able to open this store. In the store, we have products bearing the traceability mark of the product called ''Najbolje ‘z Međimurja'' (the best from Međimurje).

County Prefect Matija Posavec was present on the occasion of the opening of the stop, and emphasised the fact that these projects were a great opportunity to promote local producers and their healthy products, and invited customers to come and buy products there in order to support to domestic OPGs.

This brand new Međimurje store will work on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 10:00 to 18:00 and on Saturdays from 08:00 to 14:00. On Sundays and Mondays, the store will be closed.

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The Croatian-made robots from an Osijek startup can carry up to 800 kg of goods and are fully integrated into the company's system.

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 11th of July, 2019, Atlantic Group (Grupa), a food and distribution multinational based in the Republic of Croatia has started testing robots made by the Osijek startup Gideon Brothers in its new logistics and distribution centre in Velika Gorica near Zagreb.

Gideon had previously contracted testing in Atlantic Group, Orbico and Tokić. For this test, the Croatian company has stated that their other pilot project is still in production conditions.

Mladen Pejković, senior executive director for transformation and information technology at Atlantic Group, says that with this move, they've confirmed their leading position in this industry.

"We can see the many advantages of using Gideon's robots, such as increasing efficiency, alleviating the problem of employee scarcity, which is felt not only in tourism and manufacturing, but also in distribution, and here we break this idea of robots taking jobs from humans, because the that is actually true is cooperation between humans and robots, where repetitive and boring tasks are taken over by clever machines and thus enable people to focus on more creative work and control, increasing employee satisfaction, as well as business efficiency,'' stated Pejković.

The warehouse in Velika Gorica is fully automated. These Croatian robots, which can carry loads of up to 800 kilograms, are, in fact, integrated into Atlantic Group's warehouse management system. For that purpose, Gideon cooperated with Symphony RetailAI, whose software enabled the robots to perform such tasks.

Milan Račić, CEO of Growth and co-founder of the successful Croatian startup Gideon Brothers, says that in this way, Atlantic Group is following the world trends in digitalisation of business and e-commerce. The Gideon Brothers company was founded just two years ago. Its success has been great, and it currently boasts 55 permanent employees, including very highly qualified individuals. Investors from Croatia and abroad have so far invested an enormous 16.3 million kuna into this company.

Matija Kopić, executive director and co-founder of Gideon Brothers, says he is happy that Atlantic Group is using their robots.

"Our advanced visual perception technology raises the bar of what autonomous mobile robots can do in the right warehouse. We have excellent performance in industrial environments which the competing technology can't handle - and this proves the robustness of our technology,'' Kopić concluded.

Follow our dedicated Made in Croatia for more information on Croatian robotics, Croatian companies, Croatian startups, innovation, inventions, and much more.

A touch of Slavonia, Croatia in Austria.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes on the 4th of July, 2019, there are many souvenirs that tourists buy during their stay in the Austrian capital of Vienna, such as refrigerator magnets embellished with the most famous Austrian tourist attractions such as the Schönbrunn Palace.

It might be easy to imagine the Chinese churning out endless supplies of these small but meaningful little keepsakes, but many are actually made by a Croatian entrepreneur, Zoran Bašić, from Trnjani in Slavonia. In Trnjani, an Eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, lie the production plant and the headquarters of Decoupage Repromaterijal Bašić Art, the first Croatian souvenir magnet making factory. For years, this company from Slavonia has been present on the Austrian market, and this entrepreneur has been successful in domestic design, production and placement of souvenirs labelled "Made in Croatia".

It all began when Bašić, who is otherwise a skilled machinist by profession, started to work with the production of wooden jewellery and decorative objects made from wood following many hard years of work in the civil service. He eventually began exhibiting his creations at fairs across Slavonia.

Listening to the needs of the market, this entrepreneur from Slavonia saw an increase in demand in the areas in which he worked, which included room for other personalised products and all kinds of decorations.

Good work can be seen and felt far and wide, and four years ago, this talented Croatian entrepreneur received a request from a Viennese wholesaler for souvenirs who asked him to make some samples of fridge magnets.

After a year, Bašić's products were very successful over on the Austrian market, and now this factory in Slavonia is planning and aiming to place its products on the Croatian market as one of the few companies that offers such decorations with the mark of an original Croatian product.

In addition to excellent quality and innovation, these products are said to be more competitive and more affordable, and even cheaper than the infamous things the Chinese make, which continue to swamp and drown the market.

"The key to the success with the Austrians, where we're dominating, are small series' according to customer's wishes, quick delivery, ie, a fast response to the orders, with the flexibility of modifying the design again according to the customer's wishes.

With us, the customers themselves can participate in creating products that they want to make using our professional help. We produce our products manually according to our own ideas or the ideas of our customers, and the price is always the same, regardless of whether one has ordered a souvenir magnet, or a hundred,'' explained Bašić.

Ninety percent of all of their orders come from women who, as the entrepreneur adds, usually have a whole host of imaginative suggestions to make their own souvenir or, for example, a cake decoration. Considering the significant demand, Bašić's next business step will be to conquer new markets and expand the production plant which is located in Trnjani, Slavonia.

"I can see great potential in the development of decoupage reproduction material on the Croatian market, especially boxes which come in different sizes and shapes, some of which are patterned while most of them are designed according to the wishes and needs of clients who come to us with full confidence,'' concluded the the innovative entrepreneur from Slavonia, Zoran Bašić.

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Each Croatian Zarovo virtual data centre is highly individualised with the goal of building upon the specific needs of every business, according to their wishes and requirements.

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 4th of July, 2019, under the auspices of experts from the Rijeka-based company DB informatika, the project Zarovo - a virtual data centre for small and medium enterprises and companies, co-funded by European Union funds, was formally presented to the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) in Zagreb. Talks on the introduction and the importance of electronic accounts, which have been legal obligations for certain types of companies since July the 1st, 2019, also took place.

DB Informatika presented a project in cooperation with the Croatian Chamber of Commerce and the ''Krug'' Association of Business Women. They took their project and presented it in Pula, Osijek, Slavonski Brod, Dubrovnik, Split, Rijeka, and the final event took place in the Croatian capital city of Zagreb.

Virtual data centres, as was stated by the company, are a Croatian response to cumbersome global systems such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Cloud, and the company's leaders claim that speed, individualised access, superior local support and security, as well as significantly cheaper prices, make this Croatian solution stand out from the rest.

"They're centres for small and medium-sized businesses that need centralised redundant business server infrastructure," explained Darko Glujić. As previously stated, each and every Zarovo Virtual Data Centre is highly individualised with the goal of building upon the specific needs of every business, according to their respective needs and wishes.

This Croatian company from Rijeka also marked the beginning of the work of SUPER - an electronic accounts management system for business clients, which introduced the category of free invoicing for small businesses and companies.

DB Informatika's experts have showcased, as they themselves say, a clear ambition to "attack" the eternally burdensome segment of about 600 million annually issued receipts in the Republic of Croatia in B2B business operations, but also to spread their wings further out onto the EU market.

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

As Bernard Ivezic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of June, 2019, one of the first ''tenants'' of the Zagreb Technological Park is a very successful Croatian startup called Altpro, which, in its 25 years of operation, has grown into a more than impressive organisation of 147 employees and exporters who sell their products in fifty countries across all continents except for Antarctica. In addition, this company has just become the first Croatian IoT solution maker for megalopolises.

The Croatian company Altpro has now released its monorail tracking device, which is not only the first such device in Croatia, but the first on the international level. This Croatian company based in Zagreb is now entering into the world of extremely valuable international partnerships. One of these partnerships is with no less than Mitsubishi, the largest Japanese company to be listed on the stock market. The European Commission (EC) has also included Croatia's Altpro on the list of 22 key technology companies that dictate railroad development on global level.

Altpro is currently developing a device that will enable railway companies to quickly and cheaply switch to the new EU security standard called ''ETCS'', which is expected to become a global standard and expand much further than Europe, because it is slowly being taken over by Japan, China, Indonesia, India and the United States.

It is now being claimed that the Croatian company Altpro is at the beginning of experiencing exponential growth and that it has transformed into a new Croatian industrial giant. Poslovni Dnevnik sat down and talked to the tireless founder and director of this impressive Croatian company, Zvonimir Viduk.

What's your plan?

After 25 years of growth in the terms of the size of a medium-sized company within the Croatian framework, I want Altpro to become a medium-sized company within the global framework over the next 25 years.

There's talk about you preparing for growth, for 1,000 employees over the next two to three years?

I think we've grown slowly. Large growth can only be permitted with large product orders, and on large markets. For the past fifteen years, we've been working on the market(s) and potential business in China and India. In the last five years, we've been exhibiting intensively over in Shanghai and Beijing. In the meantime, we've found quality partners not only in China but also in Japan, the USA, Indonesia, India, and even in large European countries.

If everything goes according to plan, according to the existing market needs in the next two or three years, we'd potentially have the capacity to look at further employment. And here we're talking about the growth of just one of our products.

Does this mean that everything depends on just that one product?

In our offer, we've got more products with which we're completing many years of development, homologation, and for which we know the global market with all its significant diversity and specificity. Being customisable and universal is of utmost importance today.

What can you say about this product for megalopolises?

This regards our infrastructure product for detecting monorail trains.

It's a globally unique product that detects the speed, direction and position of monorail trains and exchanges this data with other infrastructure subsystems. We developed it from our existing detection system. Monorails are a piece of technology in megalopolises, meaning cities with over ten million inhabitants, and which are busy and congested with traffic. In 2010, there were 25, and 2017, 47, with a tendency of further growth. Now, we can see that towns and cities with less than ten million inhabitants are also moving towards this system. Only China has 100 such strategic projects, and this technology is spreading around the world.

Who are your partners?

Several major companies from different countries from France to China, the United States, Japan, and all the way to Indonesia mean those who have noticed our specifically innovative solution.

In collaboration with them for the past three years, we've made joint installations and development tests and adaptation to their traffic control systems. For example, in India, after fourteen years, all of the testing is done, we've got all the permits, and now we're entering a joint venture with a local player.

It's the only way of entering with technological equipment in such large countries. We will have some production in India and there we'll work on the modernisation of their railways. We applied the same model in China and the partial localisation of production is already being prepared. Furthermore, Altpro has been the largest Croatian exporter in Indonesia for some time now. We've modernised more than 80 stations in four years. And there, we conduct our work through joint ventures with our largest technology company - Končar.

Last year, based on the results, that part of the business was raised to an even higher level. We signed a strategic partnership with the Indonesian partner, together with the Czech Škoda and the American Progress Rail, a member of the Caterpillar group, at Innotrans, the largest international fair in Berlin. Our plan is to develop even more business in Asia on classic two-track railways.

How long have you been building these business relations?

The high technology for infrastructure, such as railways, has been being developed for years. You have to prove not only things in a technological sense, but also in a business sense, you have to make huge investments before you even get a chance at getting your first job. We first tested our monorail sensory technology back in 2010 with a French partner, then with an Indonesian partner, then a Japanese one, then Chinese and American ones.

Do you have support from the Croatian Ministry of Economy?

The Economy Minister, Darko Horvat, is also an engineer and a businessman himself, and he's made it clear that he wants to help and emphasised the fact that such an industry is in the focus of interest. But more importantly, that ministry is actively working on incentive measures, such as removing obstacles, and communicating openly. An example of this are TIVs, an advisory team of the minister composed of manufacturing exporters themselves.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more on Croatian startups, Croatian companies, Croatian products and services, as well as all of the measures the Croatian Government and the competent ministries have put in place to aid entrepreneirship and innovation in Croatia.

One of Croatia's most inspiring success stories is that of Mate Rimac, by far. 

Rimac, an unassuming man in his thirties from Livno, Bosnia and Herzegovina, appears to have done what little to no other people manage to do in Croatia, and his progressive way of thinking as a daring and innovative entrepreneur has seen his company reach heights of success that not even he could have imagined in his wildest dreams when first starting out.

The Rimac Concept_One was once proclaimed the world's fastest electric car, and what is most surprising of all, as that these truly incredible electric vehicles are designed, built and finished right here in Croatia, more precisely in a factory located in Sveta Nedjelja near Zagreb.

Recently, Rimac attracted the attention of British YouTuber Shmee150 who went to the factory and was given an extensive tour around the premises by no less than Mate Rimac himself, who guided the YouTuber around, detailing each and every process that goes into the design and creation of these Croatian cars in perfect English. Shmee150, who is followed by a large number of car fanatics, was visibly shocked by what he had seen at the factory, as well as by Rimac's seemingly endless knowledge about what takes place there.

Following that visit, Mate Rimac began to upload his own YouTube videos in a series, you can watch them in order by clicking here, here, and here.

Rimac's Concept_Two has now appeared in a popular computer game, offering yet more publicity to the man and his company who refused to let the draconian policies of the Croatian state get him down and proved that one can absolutely succeed in Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of June, 2019, Forza Horizon 4, an extremely popular computer game, has featured no less than Rimac's Concept_Two.

"With 1914 hp, C_Two is the most powerful hyper-car in the world. Its amazing performance allows acceleration from 0-60 miles per hour in 1.85 seconds, 0-186 miles per hour in 11.8 seconds or 0-100 kilometres per hour in 1.97 seconds. Now this experience has been enabled in the virtual world. Racing simulations are more than a game, here, reality and the virtual world become one.''

Watch a clip of Rimac's C_Two featured in the popular game here:

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

As Novac/Gordana Grgas writes on the 20th of June, 2019, Marin Bek is just 33 years old, is a Croatian entrepreneur and has founded three technology startups so far, and two have not only survived, but flourished. In Croatia, they have twenty employees, and by the end of the year, as announced, that number will hopefully be doubled. At the recent JobFair which was held in Zagreb, many candidates were attracted and interviews are getting under way now.

Bek is a member of a promising new generation of Croatian entrepreneurs who are experiencing problems around them and are therefore creating smart IT solutions to deal with them instead of merely complaining. Bek first ''dived into the water'' after graduating from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, and after borrowing 3000 kuna from his cousins to be able to participate in the American startup accelerator Foundation Institute in Zagreb back in 2012.

He first began his startup in the Silicon Valley, with a startup for autonomous underwater vehicles that he called Marine Tech Factory (MTF), he raised capital from numerous business angels, and sought to sell a solution to the oil industry. That, however, unfortunately failed.

When talking about the reasons for that early failure, with a smile on his face, Bek states that he believes he probably came out with it too early on the market.

"Today, I'd say that I worked on underwater drones, which was my graduate thesis at FER. Now that's sitting and collecting dust in a warehouse at the faculty. When the MTF idea collapsed, I was left without any money so I found a job as an IT developer,'' stated Bek when discussing his very first experiences in the United States.

But this failure, and then climbing up to the position of technology director in an innovative startup called Nextuser from San Francisco, where he participated in finding an investor in the total amount of 2.5 million dollars, brought him, as he himself noted, knowledge and a much better feeling for his return to the challenging entrepreneurial waters.

To speak more specifically, in the seed round of capital that just closed for his startup, the main investor is a Canadian, who he initially met back then. Meet Ascalia, a Croatian company that has raised about 200,000 euros, and is immediately moving forward to the much larger so-called ''A round'', which deals with venture capital funds in the amount of about one million euros.

"Ascalia must grow fast," claims Bek resolutely. The idea behind it was conceived for IoT (Internet of Things) systems in the industry and in cities.

With his partner with Dejan Strbad, he also leads Kraken, a local IT company that is approaching about one million euros of income in the field of distributed data collection and processing systems with the help of machine learning. They therefore deal with large data, and their projects include those for Carrefour, Nestle, Ferrero and even Forbes.

Ascalia is currently focused on industry, and this Croatian entrepreneur was given a lift recently with a victory at the Start.Up! Germany Roadshow competition, and owing to that victory, in autumn he will take a tour of the Bavarian factories.

They have created software and a device called ADS, a kind of "plug socket" that supports numerous protocols for industrial machines that have been in existence since 1979, and then connects them to the Internet. Thus, a smart company is created without the need for any big investments, and its a viable Croatian solution that they'll also try to sell to the Germans.

''Protocol is the way the machines speak to each other, through which information is transmitted. Through our device and software, we can measure and monitor the work of the machines online, even with the old ones that are still heavily used in the industry. In the case of sawmills, one of which is one of our clients, it means that the device can read the data coming from the saw, and with the application of artificial intelligence, it can predict when some of them will break. Through emails or via the application (app), this message will be sent to a manager who can then respond in time,'' explained this highly talented Croatian entrepreneur.

The main mission of Ascalia is precisely that, optimising energy consumption and improving production processes. The main clients in Croatia are industrial equipment dealers who also maintain factory facilities, and one of them, Zigg-Pro, actually gave them the idea to develop ADS.

''This is how you raise the level of modernisation, and there's no breakdown of the plant's system of operation and no expensive new machines have to be procured,'' explained Bek. The company's interest in making its plant ''smarter'' is great, various technical directors have visited, and their plants are currently in Delnice, with another near Zagreb.

They're only now ''waking up'', and they're currently not active in looking for clients, first they have to grow financially and personally, explains Bek. Although in his business biography he notes that his expertise in IoT systems and the integration of machine learning algorithms into everyday processes "is now his main activity'' as a manager.

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