Southeast Europe, a region traditionally known in tech for outsourcing and affordable engineering talent, has managed to turn the tide of late.
The Balkans have seen record growth and the rise of scale hits like competitor Twilio infobeep, Automobile manufacturer bugatti rimac and other unicorns.
But what about startups with the potential to hit a $1bn+ valuation in the region?
Sifted put together a list of nine of the most promising companies in the Balkans. The list is a mix of cash-efficient expansions that grew with limited amounts of venture capital, as well as companies that have attracted significant capital from some of the world’s best-known investors.
We looked at companies that were valued at more than €100 million or were growing three to five times a year in users or revenue. Wherever possible, publicly available information from sources such as App Annie and Crunchbase was used; in other cases, Sifted asked the companies directly.
photomathematics
A B2C educational app with more than 320 million downloads worldwide that allows users to scan printed text and handwritten math problems with a device’s camera or write and edit equations with their calculator.
Photomath breaks down math problems so users can understand the basics and often solve their homework and assignments faster. The app is most popular among elementary school students, their parents, and teachers. The team is made up of serial entrepreneurs with previous outings; Founder and CEO Damir Sabol’s success was in bringing broadband internet to Croatia. Photomath is backed by Menlo Ventures, GSV Ventures and Cherubic Ventures.
Amount raised to date: 29 million dollars
Founder and CEO: Damir Sabol
Birthplace: Zagreb, Croatia
Headquarters location: San Mateo, United States
What’s next for the company: Product monetization.
gideon
Gideon is a Croatian company that builds flexible autonomous mobile robots. Its two main products are the Casey, which is used to pick up boxes, and the Trey, an autonomous forklift that manages trailer loading and unloading operations. The company is backed by Koch Disruptive Technologies and Deutsche Bahn Digital Ventures.
Amount raised to date $37.5 million
Co-founders: Matija Kopić, Josip Ćesić, Kruno Stražanac and Edin Koco
Birthplace: Zagreb, Croatia
Headquarters location: U.S
What’s next for the company: After previously competing in pilots in the region with early adopters Atlantic and Tokić, the company now plans to roll out its Trey forklift solution, launched in April this year.
orqa
Originally from Osijek, Crotia, Orqa produces video headset devices that allow people to control vehicles like drones remotely from a pilot’s point of view and is creating ultra-low latency video solutions for unmanned systems and telepresence. The team is led by Srdjan Kovacevic, who has a background in finance and pension fund management, and Ivan Jelušić, a serial entrepreneur with a background in consumer electronics. Orqa’s investors include Hungary’s DayOne Capital and several well-known angels.
Amount raised to date: €1.7 million
Founder and CEO: Srdjan Kovacevic
Birthplace: Osijek, Croatia
Headquarters location: Dublin
What’s next for the company: Sale to the defense industry through its joint venture Vegvisir. This Croatian-Estonian entity is focused on developing an armored vehicle situational awareness system in line with NATO standards. Timely given the current geopolitical situation in Europe.
gently
Tenderly is a blockchain platform for real-time monitoring, alerting, debugging, and simulating smart contracts on Ethereum. The team originally met while working at MVP Workshop, a regional Web3 and cryptocurrency development organization. The company was founded in 2019 and has since grown into a global team with more than 60 employees, according to LinkedIn. The company has received investments from Notable investors such as Accel, Spark Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Point Nine Capital.
Amount raised to date: $58.6 million
Founder and CEO: Andrej Bencic
Place of origin and headquarters: Belgrade, Serbia
What’s next for the company: Although the company itself does not seem to be affected by the crypto winter, the majority of the company’s user base still is, so the team is using this time to expand its product portfolio.
orgnostic
Orgnostic is a people analytics platform as a service founded by Luka Babic, former head of people operations at Infobip, a pre-IPO regional expansion, and Igor Bogicevic, former co-founder and CTO of Seven Bridges Genomics, an expansion of bioinformatics. Orgnostic helps companies organize and link all their HR data in one platform and gain insights from this data. The company was backed by Earlybird, Charlie Songhurst, SC Ventures and the Angel Syndicate of Serbian Entrepreneurs.
Amount raised to date: $5.9 million
Founder and CEO: Luka Babic
Birthplace: Belgrade, Serbia
Headquarters location: Cambridge, USA
What’s next for the company: After closing several accounts for large global companies, the team is focused on fine-tuning the product as well as scaling its business and product organization.
reversinglabs
ReversingLabs is a cybersecurity extension that focuses on software supply chain risks. The founders, Tomislav Peričin and Mario Vuksan, are veterans of cybersecurity. The company received funding from Crosspoint Capital Partners, JP Morgan, ForgePoint Capital and Prelude.
Amount raised to date: $81 million
Founder and CEO: Mario Vuksan
Birthplace: Zagreb, Croatia
Headquarters location: Cambridge, USA
What’s next for the company: The company maintains its focus on its portfolio of software supply chain and security risk products, while expanding the development team in Zagreb and boosting sales and marketing in the US.
treble
Treblle is a Zagreb-born startup that processes API requests on its platform while helping developers understand what happens to those requests. Founders Vedran Cindric and Darko Blazevic previously led a developer workshop where they experienced many issues with client APIs, which motivated them to found the company. The company raised a pre-seed round from Nauta Capital in 2021 and will soon close the Series A round.
Amount raised to date: €1.2 million
Founder and CEO: Vedran Cindric
Birthplace: Zagreb, Croatia
Headquarters location: London, United Kingdom
What’s next for the company: After recently adding 12k developers to its platform, Treblle is scaling and monetizing its API product for enterprise customers.
perceptive (formerly known as Workpuls)
Founded in Belgrade, Insightful is an employee productivity platform with over 130,000 users and a major benefactor of Covid and the shift to remote work. The company has received investment from MHS Capital, StartLabs and local venture capital firm South Central Ventures.
Amount raised to date: approximately $4 million
Founder and CEO: Ivan Petrovic
Birthplace: Belgrade, Serbia
Headquarters location: San Francisco, United States
What’s next for the company: Insightful wants to maintain growth and momentum, as well as expand into new markets and verticals.
phone
Company: Fonoa is an API-based platform for tax automation in online transactions. The founding team met while working at a regional Uber office where they discovered a need for an API tax solution that even Uber would use. Fonoa has attracted investors including Index Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Coatue, Dawn Capital and FJ Labs and has won clients including Uber, Zoom, Bolt and Booking.com.
Amount raised to date: $85 million
Founder and CEO: Davor Tremac
Birthplace: Zagreb, Croatia
Headquarters location: Dublin, Ireland
What’s next for the company: Continue expanding the product portfolio in compliance with the new regional legislation.
Josipa Majic is a businesswoman and writer based in Zagreb, Croatia.
