Great news for the Croatian startup world!
Atomico, an international technology investment firm headquartered in London, has announced that Croatian startups have thus far attracted $100 million in investment, reports Poslovni.hr on December 3, 2017.
This is the first of such an assessment to date and holds great importance considering Atomico is the largest European venture capital fund investing in startups. Atomico raised $765 million for new investments in European startups this year alone, and now it is finally clear just how essential Croatian startups are for investors around Europe.
According to the study by The State of European Tech which was published by Atomico at Slush, the largest European startup conference which ended this weekend in Helsinki, Croatia was placed next to Luxembourg, Lithuania, Portugal and Cyprus by the amount of investment.
The most significant investment was given to startups in the United Kingdom which recorded $18.7 billion, of which $5.4 billion was invested just this year. Following the U.K. are startups from Germany who have attracted $11.4 billion in investment so far, of which $2.5 billion was invested this year. In third place is France with $10 billion in investments, while Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland follow after.
Of the countries in the region, the most significant investment was given to startups in Austria, which attracted $700 million so far – $300 million of which was invested this year alone. Italian startups come in second with $600 million in investment, of which $100 million was invested this year alone.
In Southeast Europe, the most successful startups for attracting capital are those from Croatia. Though Atomico has only gathered data for the period between 2012 – 2016, during that time, Croatian startups have brought in $100 million in investment. Romania and Hungary are also highlighted in the region but are said to have drawn less than $100 million in capital.
Atomico did not publish data about how much Croatian startup investments gained in 2017, however, if just the investments received by Mate Rimac for Rimac Automobile are considered, this figure will increase significantly.
Urška Sršen, co-founder of Bellabeat who was quoted by Atomico in their report reveals a lesser known fact about the additional opportunities for startup development in Europe and Croatia.
“We have a lot of good engineers from Slovenia and Croatia who left to go work for Facebook and Google in the US for many years and would like to be back in Europe,” says Sršen.
Translated from Poslovni.hr
