March the 18th, 2021 - The stunning Rimac Concept_One is a supercar which put Croatia on the automotive map, leading to a snowball effect and even the German car giant Porsche investing huge amounts in Rimac Automobili, the product of a Livno-born entrepreneur with a dream and a lot of drive.

YouTubers have gone from relative obscurity to having very much overtaken celebrities as we've come to know them via mainstream media. There are some enormous names and even more enormous amounts of exposure (and indeed money) attached the to the names of certain, primarily American YouTubers who have raked in millions of subscribers with their content over the years. When it comes to tech, there are few better positioned or better known than Marques Brownlee.

Brownlee is an American YouTuber (and a professional frisbee player) with a subscriber count to die for. His videos bring in literally millions of tech lovers from across the globe and his Waveform podcast succeeds in doing the same. It was only a matter of time before Brownlee turned his keen eye to the likes of Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac and his state-of-the-art supercars, more specifically the Rimac Concept_One.

While Mate Rimac needs very little in the way of publicity, rising to the spotlight repeatedly and entirely on his own merit and dogged determination, the 27-year-old American tech YouTuber's attention on the Rimac Concept_One is absolutely worth a mention, as is the attention of his 13+ million channel subscribers.

The video, which at the time of writing was at 27 on trending, is called Dope Tech: The Fastest Car AND Drone Yet! and Brownlee indulges his tech passion by looking into a drone which can travel at an incredible speed of 87mph and of course, the jawdropping Rimac Concept_One supercar which can reach 211 mph.

At the beginning of the video, Brownlee describes Rimac's supercar as the "fastest car he'll have ever driven", before adding how the vehicle is "on another level" and that it isn't something one would see in the street - for good reason. The stylish blue Concept_One is then driven by a visibly impressed Brownlee, who is full of compliments for the Croatian entrepreneur's fascinating vehicle.

Watch the whole video here:

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

March the 15th, 2021 - Croatian businessman Mate Rimac, the owners of the Sveta Nedelja-based company Rimac Automobili, has announced that due to a need for more space, the company will be moving to Jankomir.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Livno-born businessman Mate Rimac is moving his company to a new space due to the excellent levels of growth he has been experiencing with more and more employees, he announced on his Facebook profile.

Earlier on this month, it was announced that Porsche had further increased its investment in Rimac Automobili, increasing its stake in the company to 24 percent. The latest investment strengthens Rimac Automobili´s position as a company specialising in technology development and the production of key systems for the high-performance electric vehicle market.

Since Porsche’s first investment in businessman Mate Rimac´s company back in 2018, the Rimac Automobili team has doubled to nearly 1,000 employees.

Rimac wrote a Facebook status which said that his company has been struggling with space for years and they are currently scattered across ten locations. The long-term solution to this problem is the construction of the Rimac campus, but until it is completed, the company will work from the new space, which is the former Pevec in Jankomir. It is a space which covers 25,000 square metres in total.

¨Given that we´re growing very quickly (both in terms of the number of people and the number of projects and production lines we have), we´ve been struggling with space for years, and as such we´re scattered in 10 locations (14 facilities in 9 cities and 3 countries), which makes things for our business very difficult. I think it is well known that we have been planning to build a campus for a long time now - our long-term solution to the location problem. Unfortunately, some things are going quite slowly, so we still have to "patch" up some things and find some semi-solutions. We recently opened an R&D office for 400+ people in Zagreb. We haven´t yet published any pictures or details about that location - we will soon,¨ businessman Mate Rimac wrote on Facebook.

“As the realisation of the Rimac campus will take some time, we´ve been intensively looking for a space that will enable us to survive until the campus becomes a reality. We were looking for a space of at least 15,000 m2 in Zagreb and its surroundings. I believe that there´s no space that we didn´t visit - we even went so far as to see crazy combinations such as the old passenger terminal of the Airport (Pleso), various shopping centres (Mandi, West Gate, Tekstil Promet…), old industrial buildings (Gredelj, Viadukt, a bunch of neglected old factories) etc. I think we´ve literally looked at everything that can more or less meet the conditions (even areas quite far from Zagreb) and the conclusion is - Croatia really does not have suitable (and available) space for any more such serious production. Some locations may be used but are not suitable for the area in which they´re located or their ownership/property status issues (eg Gredelj) or have already agreed a long-term lease, so it´s impossible to start using a building within a reasonable time (such as the former Magma in Jaska, which would be our best solution).

At least now we know that we have gone through everything we can and made the best decision based on all of the available data. Or in fact - the least bad. "Bad" because we have to invest a lot of money in a space that we will only use for a few years until we move to the campus. But I guess that’s the price of growth (and locations where there are no industrial plants available).

We decided on the former Pevec in Jankomir - an area of ​​some 25,000 square metres. I know, it´s far from perfect, but considering everything, this was really the only possible option.

The works are in full swing and in 4-5 months we should have 400-500 employees on site. Part of the production will be located there, industrialisation, part of the development and other parts of our business. As with all of our locations - despite the short time of use, we will do our best to arrange the location to be representative and comfortable to stay in and work in. I hope tours will be possible by the end of the year.

P.S. We´ll publish the Rimac campus project with all the details in the next few weeks,¨ businessman Mate Rimac wrote on his Facebook page.

For more on Croatian entrepreneurs, follow Made in Croatia.

March the 12th, 2021 - The location of the brand new Rimac campus has been revealed, and the condition of everything coming to fruition lies on one massive investment and a praiseworthy job creating promise.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Brnic writes, the door to the realisation of the new Mate Rimac campus investment project is finally opening up. Sveta Nedjelja, in which Rimac Automobili is situated, has announced a public tender for the establishment of construction rights on an area covering a total of 199 thousand square metres, for which the construction of a production and research and development campus is planned, and for which the annual fee would be at least 0.10 kuna per square metre.

The right to construct on that piece of land would be contracted for 69 years, which means that the investor would pay Sveta Nedelja almost 20 thousand kuna a year. These are assets that were transferred to the ownership of Sveta Nedelja, whose spatial plan envisages the construction of such a campus in the area of ​​the old Erdödy castle in Kerestinec.

The tender envisages, among other things within the realm of the Rimac campus, the construction of a production plant, a testing laboratory, a research and development centre, an information and educational complex with complementary facilities for both regular users and visitors, from restaurants, dormitories for short stays to offices, exhibition and sales premises, and even the the construction of a smaller hotel boasting up to 100 beds. It will also be possible to build sport/fitness and recreational facilities for Rimac campus employees.

A few years ago when he initially announced his intention to build a campus, entrepreneur Mate Rimac explained that it would be a win-win situation for everyone. "The castle would be renovated, and the company that is the flagship of Croatian industry would be even more representative," said Rimac at the time, whose facilities were already being regularly visited by interested people from all over the world.

The criteria for scoring bids show that a minimum investment of 100 million kuna needs to follow, which will create at least 200 new jobs and employ 50 new highly educated members of staff, and the tender conditions show that the further investment process will proceed quickly, because the plan is to conclude a contract within 30 days from the selection of the best offer, and in the following eight days, the investor will be introduced to property, and they then have exactly three years left to realise the investment in the Rimac campus. The start of the investment must begin within twelve months, otherwise Sveta Nedelja may unilaterally terminate the contract should it so wish.

The tender will remain open until March the 23rd, 2021, and the selection of the offer will be announced in the next thirty days, which means that the investor would have all the predispositions to start investing in the brand new Rimac campus by the beginning of June.

It is unlikely that Mate Rimac will have a competitor in this process, because he drafted the entire project a long time ago himself and announced that he was looking for a unique location like this one for his campus in the vicinity of Zagreb and Sveta Nedelja.

For more on Rimac and other Croatian entrepreneurs, follow Made in Croatia.

March the 10th, 2021 - Croatian innovator Mate Rimac has showcased one of his first interesting projects, looking back at his humble yet always impressive beginnings as Porsche invests another huge amount of money into the Sveta Nedelja-based company.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, after news broke recently that the German car giant Porsche had increased its already substantial investment in Rimac Automobili, increasing its stake in the company to 24 percent, innovator Mate Rimac took to Facebook to look back at one of his much earlier projects.

¨Once upon a time, during an interview, they asked me if we were working on autonomous driving. Back then I said that we had already made one self-driving car. At the beginning of the company´s creation, we came up with various prototypes for other companies and in that way we survived. We undertook some crazy projects that others couldn’t or didn’t want to do. We were mostly bound by confidentiality agreements, but in this case the contracts have since expired and the project has long been irrelevant so I decided to share the story of that famous self-driving car here.

Back in 2013, when there were about 10 of us working at the company, and we started working for a large German company. They told us their vision of the future - orally, without any specifications. I have to admit that before that project I thought autonomous driving was uninteresting and I didn’t think about the concept of mobility as a service. The customer wanted us to develop and build a prototype based on their idea. The catch was that we have to do all this within 90 days because otherwise their budget reservation for the project would fail and go to the "second box office" (which is big corporate language for "we will not pay you if you do not do something that is almost impossible").

90 days of work day and night on a completely new vehicle concept with a completely different principle of steering and drive (eg 3 in-wheel engines that were also used to "straighten" up the vehicle). Yes, it is a real vehicle and I drove to Samobor once in it.

The aim was to show what the future of mobility might look like. The car of course did not drive autonomously but had a joystick to control it between the seats (drive / steer / brake by wire) and remotely for the purposes of a demonstration video. Given the budget, time, knowledge and size of the team we had at our disposal, this is something I´m still proud of to this day and it opened my eyes in terms of which direction the future of individual mobility should or could go.

We also had the concept of "nice" performance (with a "real" exterior design - not a "pipe" with pipes, but there was no time or money for that). We survived doing such things back at the beginning. We went down to the wire and were often late with our commitments, but we managed to survive. Today, companies with less than this prototype raise hundreds of millions of euros in funding, but it was a different time back then. As little as 8 years may seem, in fact, at least in our industry, everything has completely changed.

By the way, there have been a bunch of other similar projects and I might show you some of them - of course the ones I can show today without making our customers then or now angry. Thanks to everyone who participated in creating this insane device.¨

For more on innovator Mate Rimac and other Croatian entrepreneurs, follow Made in Croatia.

March the 8th, 2021 - Porsche has decided to invest a further 70 million euros into the Croatian Rimac Automobili company, owned by Livno-born entrepreneur Mate Rimac.

As Ivan Luzar/Telegram writes, Porsche has invested an additional 70 million euros in Croatian Rimac Automobili, taking Porsche's stake in the company up to 24 percent. The news of this additional investment was somewhat expected, as last week we wrote about a potential 130 to 150 million euro investment from the giant company. The same was said by the founder of Rimac Automobili, Mate Rimac to the German automotive magazine Automobilwoche.

Rimac Automobili has as such reached a value of 795 million euros, or 947 million US dollars, writes Reuters. Last week, the Croatian Rimac Automobili commented on the news of the increase in Porsche's share in the company headquartered in Sveta Nedelja near Zagreb, thus confirming that the German company was set to increase its share, but that Rimac Automobili will still remain independent. Then, as now, they still have not commented on the news of the possible takeover of Bugatti, which has been talked about for months.

Porsche invested for the first time back in 2018

Porsche invested in Rimac Automobili back in 2018, when they took over a 10 percent stake in the company, and just a year later, they increased that stake to 15 percent. Now, two years later, Porsche has bought an additional 8.8 percent for the aforementioned 70 million euros.

"Rimac is well positioned for the production of prototypes and cars in small series. Rimac Automobili is on its way to becoming one of the main suppliers for Porsche, but also other manufacturers in the high-tech segment of the automotive industry,” said Porsche CFO Lutz Meschke.

Since back in 2018, when Porsche first invested, Rimac has almost doubled its number of employees to a thousand. They have also undertaken various collaborations in the automotive industry, such as the one(s) with Hyundai, Kia and Aston Martin.

Rimac: "The amount of the investment is not a priority"

Mate Rimac commented on Porsche's new investment on his Facebook profile: 

Can there be a better confirmation of a successful partnership than 3 separate investments within 4 years?

Getting Porsche initially on-board was extremely important for us. Having confirmed that they did the right thing and that we have earned Porsche’s trust, makes us very proud.

This 70M Euro investment is part of our long-term strategic collaboration, where different aspects of strategic collaboration can be expected in the future. The valuation and amount raised are not the priority in this deal. We are working on some other transactions that will reflect the market value of Rimac as a company.

We are all excited to see the fruits of this ever-deeper cooperation.

For more on Rimac and Croatian entrepreneurship and companies, follow Made in Croatia.

March the 2nd, 2021 - Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac keeps going from strength to strength when it comes to doing business responsibly and succeeding on the tricky investment front, going as far as to attract automotive giants like Porsche once again.

Rimac Automobili is a company that has done much more than just put Croatia on the automotive map, which is no small feat at all, but Livno-born Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac has shown that it is very possible to succeed and do well in Croatia if enough effort and know-how are employed.

Attracting investments left, right and centre, the always smiling protagonist of this shining Croatian business story even taught the Croatian Government a thing or two about how to attract massive investments from huge companies and as such bring the automotive industry within Croatia's borders.

As Novac writes, no less than Porsche should participate in a new round of financing for entrepreneur Mate Rimac's impressive company Rimac Automobili, in which the company should raise an additional 130 to 150 million euros, the company's founder Mate Rimac told the German publication Automobilwoche.

The funding should be completed in two to three months, and another round of funding is planned by the end of the year, entrepreneur Mate Rimac explained.

Porsche currently holds a 15.5 percent stake in Rimac Automobili, and that Porsche owned stake could increase to just under 50 percent in an agreement under which Rimac would take over Volkswagen's luxury brand Bugatti, about which we recently wrote.

Rimac Automobili, as well as Volkswagen, have not yet commented on this matter and this article will be updated as comments come out.

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February the 22nd, 2021 - Rimac Automobili, owned by Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac, has gone from strength to strength and it seems as if that run is far from over.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Bugatti and the Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac are becoming closer than ever in their relations, with a company takeover from Rimac seeming closer to coming to fruition than ever.

"At the moment, we're thinking intensively about how to ensure the development of Bugatti in the best possible way. Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac could play a significant role in all of that because the two brands fit very well in a technological sense,'' Porsche's Oliver Blume told Automobilwoche.

The Croatian company Rimac Automobili and Volkswagen's supercar brand Bugatti are a fantastic couple in terms of technology, said Oliver Blume, Porsche's director for German Automobilwoche, Reuters reports. The statement reawakened hope that Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac's beloved company could indeed take over the gigantic Bugatti, which has, as Telegram writes, been being talked about for several months now and would mean an enormous amount for Croatia's place on the car map.

Namely, back in September last year, the British portal CarMagazine announced that the Volkswagen Group would hand over Bugatti to Rimac Automobili, in exchange for increasing Porsche's share in Rimac's impressive company headquartered in Sveta Nedelja near Zagreb.

Volkswagen is also the owner of the Porsche brand, which has acquired a 15.5 percent stake in the Croatian company over the years. Back in 2018, they bought a 10 percent stake, and a year later they purchased another 5.5 percent of it. Britain's CarMagazine then claimed that VW's management intended to increase that share to a significantly higher 49 percent.

“There are different scenarios with different structures that we're looking into. I believe that a decision on this issue will be made in the first half of this year,'' noted Oliver Blume.

For more on Mate Rimac, follow our dedicated section.

February 16, 2021 – In an admiring new business profile, the most prestigious of British broadcasters looks at Croatian car innovator Mate Rimac BBC comparing him to Tesla's Elon Musk.

In an admiring new business profile, the most prestigious of British broadcasters looks at Croatian car innovator Mate Rimac BBC comparing him to Tesla's Elon Musk.

The Mate Rimac BBC profile is titled 'The hypercar maker who was told to give up his dream' and was published earlier today, Tuesday 16 February 2021. In the article, which is part business profile and part a personality profile on Mate Rimac BBC journalist and business correspondent Theo Leggett describes Rimac automobiles as “some of the most exotic machines on the planet”.

The BBC profile of Mate Rimac and his Rimac Automobili company, from earlier today © BBC screenshot

Direct quotes from the Mate Rimac BBC profile

“Rimac Automobili is best known for building ultra-exclusive electric hypercars,” says Mate Rimac BBC profile writer Mr Leggett.

“The Concept One, first unveiled in 2011, had a top speed of 354km/h (220mph). Only eight were ever made - and one was famously destroyed when the TV presenter Richard Hammond careered off the road during a competition in Switzerland.”

“Its successor the C_Two is even more extreme with a claimed top speed of 415km/h (258mph); able to accelerate from 0-97km/h (60mph) in 1.85 seconds. Due to go on sale this year, it's expected to have a price tag of €2m ($2.4m; £1.8m).”

The rimac C_Two © Branko Radovanović

“The cars are by any normal measure extraordinary. But they form only one part of Rimac's business model. Increasingly the company is setting itself up as a technology supplier to other manufacturers, to help them build their own high-performance electric cars.”

Alongside the obvious similarity of them both building electric cars, it is this expansion of the company's field of vision that prompts the Mate Rimac BBC profile journalist to compare the Croat to Tesla's Elon Musk.

Further along in the Mate Rimac BBC profile, the journalist interviews David Bailey, professor of industrial strategy at Birmingham University.

"Mate Rimac is seen as a real disruptor," says Professor Bailey. "His company has come from absolutely nowhere, their products are really exciting - and they've developed a brand round the hypercars."

January 27, 2021 - Croatia has a number of fabulous and untapped unique tourism experiences, among them the Rimac tour in Sveta Nedelja. 

I will confess that I wasn't 100% sure who he was when I first met Mate Rimac a few years ago on the Nikola Tesla EV Rally in Porec. Something to do with cool electric cars, I had been told. And then I saw the Concept One.

Rather embarrassingly, young Rimac had heard of me and was very complimentary about TCN. Having recognised what a legend the boy was, I managed to get that all-important selfie, and it was only after sharing that on Facebook that I realised what a legend he  was when many people from my past who I had not heard from in years started messaging me:

"Is that you and Rimac? Do you actually know him?"

And no, I don't really know him. We have met briefly 3-4 times briefly and always exchanged a laugh. He comments occasionally on my wall (mostly about posts on Del Boy and Rodney, funnily enough), but the more I have followed the Rimac story, the more I appreciate what he does for Brand Croatia, and what an asset he is for the country's tourism. 

And I had come to that conclusion even before the release of THAT video about living and working in Croatia.

And it turns out that Rimac Automobili offer their own unique tourism experience to visitors to Croatia, one which makes for an excellent day trip out of Zagreb, to the company's headquarters in Sveta Nedelja, about 25 minutes from Zagreb city centre.  

Rimac has kept things very local despite his rapid expansion, and the company is very much at home in the town named the best for the economy for the last three years running. 

I had the chance to finally visit the factory where all the magic a few months ago, and I was delighted to learn that there is an officially organised Rimac tour for car enthusiasts.  

Details of the tour are in detail below, but I really liked the reception area where it all began, including a fascinating timeline of where it all started, and where it is today. young Mate looking more like Del Boy back in 2006 as a high school student winning national and international awards for innovation with the iGlove, before moving on to 'the Garage Phase' with his beat-up 1984 BMW E30.  

2011 must have been quite a year - from setting world records to the launch of the prototype of Concept_One as the world's first all-electric hypercar at the Frankfurt Motor Show. 

And so the years rolled by, with a growing team and increased success and international recognition.  

The history of the company is beautifully recorded in this timeline, but that is only part of the fascinating tour, which needs to be booked in advance (and I suspect may not be currently available due to coronavirus restrictions).  

The standard tour costs 225 kuna (30 euro - 10 euro for students), with a 50 euro premium tour including a test ride with the revolutionary Greyp bikes. Sadly, a ride in the Concept_One or C_Two is reserved for customers only. 

But here is what the tour includes, with photos from the official Rimac site - photography on the tour itself is restricted.  

History

Walk down the history line and meet the iconic Concept_One, our technology in other hypercars and our next generation, the C_Two.

Machining

Explore of the process of various raw materials turning into molds that go further in the process or into finished parts used in the components or vehicle assembly.

Composites

Learn about different composites used in hypercar production as well as the steps taken from mold preparation to a finished part.

Paintshop

Grasp the complexity of our painting process and various methods used to create state-of-the-art hypercars.

Prototype Assembly

Watch all the parts come together in our prototype assembly area.

Engineering

Meet the team behind the world's most advanced electric hypercars and EV technology, the brain of the operation.

One of my favourite questions in the tour FAQ is:

CAN WE HAVE A CHAT WITH MATE RIMAC?

Due to Mate’s busy schedule we can’t promise you will have a chance to meet him. Maybe, you will have a chance to see him working with some of our engineers or technicians.

Should corona not be an issue, tours are generally available Monday to Friday from 10:00 - 13:00. You are advised to check everything in advance in these uncertain times on the Rimac tour dedicated page.

And while you are there, why not make a day of it in Sveta Nedelja. The nature is beautiful and the lakes are magical. Check out the official promo video from the Sveta Nedelja Tourist Board. 

For the latest from Rimac and Sveta Nedelja, follow the TCN Rimac and Sveta Nedelja sections. 

January 19, 2021 - While some leaders have social media accounts suspending for allegedly inciting violence, others use it as an effective tool to engage with their audience, leaders such as the man behind the Rimac C_Two.

This has to be one of the coolest maps featuring Croatia that I have ever seen. 

A map of global car dealerships for Croatia's only car producer. There are more global dealerships for Rimac Automobilii than the number of cars that the company has ever produced. Think about that for the moment. 

And even though the number of dealerships is growing, this will not be the case for long, as the Rimac C_Two goes into production. 

The map was posted by CEO Mate Rimac on his latest Facebook post yesterday. In an age where leaders are being banned for allegedly inciting violence, Rimac uses the tool extremely effectively to update people on progress, as well as to clear up misconceptions and misunderstandings, as is the case in his latest post, which is published in full below.

You can follow Mate Rimac on Facebook.

Something I wanted to clear up for a long time. During an interview with our Head of Sales a couple of years ago, a journalist misinterpreted (mistakenly or not) that the C_Two is sold out. That was not the case and still isn't, but has been repeated in many articles as a fact.

While it is not unusual for hypercars to be sold-out before they go into production, that is usually only the case for established brands, like Ferrari. The C_Two has many 'firsts' - first all-electric-hypercar (globally homologated), first series-production car of Rimac (a new and still relatively unknown brand) etc. It is a completely new market (there are no competitors in production yet) and nobody knows how customers will really react. Customers are very interested in the car but want to see how things play out - they want to try it before committing and see reviews. We are fully in line with that and have never pushed customers to commit before trying the car. There are, of course, many who trusted us enough and liked the car so much to pay a deposit very early on.

For the latest in the Rimac story, follow the dedicated TCN section.