As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 12th of June, 2019, the very first investor in Croatia’s highly respected Rimac Automobili, Colombian Frank Kanayet Yepes, has made yet another investment in a Croatian startup. He has put a million kuna into the innovative Zagreb company Hubbig.
Much like Rimac Automobili, this startup investment significantly deviates from what you’d typically see in Croatia, or what you could likely refer to as the Croatian average. Kanayet Yepes has registered his co-ownership in the Court Registry, where the name of his company from Bogota, Colombia, now sits. This means that his investments, therefore, weren’t run through any headquarters based abroad, but Hubbig received its directly, right here in Croatia. In in this investment round, this Colombian investor was accompanied by a Croatian investor, Ivan Glavaš, who was also entered as a co-owner of Croatia’s Hubbig in the Court Registry.
Glavaš is known to Croatia’s continually growing startup community as the founder of blockchain startup Forebit, which Thompson Reuters and Bloomberg are doing in the world of the ”fiat money” index, with analytics and other sophisticated financial services which are carried out for banks, stock exchanges, and other institutions. In addition to the above mentioned individuals, Monclac Mikac, former operations director at Rimac Automobili, who today is the director of the development of the Spanish company QEV Technologies, joined Hubbig’s co-ownership. Mikac has now become Hubbig’s adviser.
Hubbig was founded at the end of 2017. In May last year, it started with commercial work and today it has 10 members. Along with interesting investors and the location of the investment, it’s also interesting that since the beginning of operations, it’s remained profitable. FINA’s records state that in 2018, Hubbig enjoyed a turnover of 724,658 kuna, with a net profit of 101,415 kuna. This platform is unique in that, unlike freight forwarders, it immediately prints out final prices, even for the most complex of trips, such as shipping vessels and trucks from China to Europe, or indeed vice versa.
Thar type of job has so far been done manually, so a final price was something that usually needed to be waited for. In addition, there is often no possibility for the shipment to be tracked, and this innovative startup from Croatia also offers this option.
Dragana Lipovac, the founder and director of Hubbig, says it aims to grow into a global logistics marketplace that connects carriers to customers without intermediaries and other ”middle men”.
“Our plan is to expand into the region of Central Europe, because we’re currently focusing on Croatia and Zagreb and opening up opportunities for transportation in Latin America and China,” stated Lipovac. She added that the contribution of Frank Kanayet, which was then joined by that of Monika Mikac, will be enormously helpful.
She also stated that, due to his investment in Rimac Automobili, Frank comes to Croatia at least twice a year and she finally had the opportunity to meet him last September.
She says that they were able to negotiate in principle, then things became more concrere, they dealt with and resolved all of the other procedures, until the investment became apparent in black and white in the Court Register.
“Frank has invested in 28 startups in the last year alone, he has a great team around him, and we’ve been doing everything without any problems,” added Lipovac. Ivan Glavaš, another investor in Hubbig, says that the core of this platform to raise price transparency in freight forwarding.
“My entire career on the stock market revolves around prices, so my work with Hubbig is even more interesting,” said Glavaš. He is convinced that his return on this investment is safe.
However, he emphasised the fact that he has no intention of pulling out of the investment, claiming that his investment was to help grow the company. How well Hubbig’s growth plans are going is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that the company has already exceeded last year’s revenue.
“I believe that the revenue in 2019 will be double in comparison to that of last year, and the plans are for the number of clients, despite it still being small base, to triple,” said Lipovac.
Prior to this million-kuna investment, this unusual company from Croatia received a total of 365,000 kuna of seed capital on two occasions. At the beginning of the year, it took a convertible loan of 200,000 kuna, and at the end of 2017, it won at Zagreb Connect, winning 165,000 kuna.
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