October the 17th, 2023 – The Croatian startup Choncha has been boosted by a very handsome 120 thousand euro investment.
As Novac/Jutarnji/Bernard Ivezic writes, the innovative Croatian startup Choncha, which was started less than a year and a half ago by Frano Primorac, has now successfully collected 120 thousand euros of investment.
To briefly remind you, Choncha is a domestic startup that has developed a smart container for plants. It got its name from the local name in neighbouring Herzegovina for the container, and this container has a smart irrigation system and sensors to monitor the conditions for plant growth. It connected to an accompanying mobile application (app) which boasts the same name.
The first investment for the Croatian startup Choncha
The seed investment for Choncha was made by Ivan Poldrugac, and Primorac has since stated that this first investment capital has definitely come at the right time. The largest part of it is going to be poured into serial production, he added.
He stated that in less than a year and a half, they won the EIT-climate KIC and created a successful Kickstarter campaign through which 129 customers ordered smart plant pots worth 10,675 USD. The Kickstarter campaign actually ended up being twice as successful as they initially planned.
Customers from Croatia and the region are the target
Primorac stated that the goal of the Croatian startup Choncha at this moment in time is to sell the first tranche of their serial production and prepare for the company’s expansion. The first customers, he says, will be sought in the Republic of Croatia and across the more immediate region.
“I believe that we’re going to have enough customers from Croatia, but we’re also open to orders from the wider region. We didn’t extend things further this time, although the Kickstarter campaign clearly showed us that we have a lot of potential for global expansion. This is especially the case when looking across the pond to the USA, where more than 60 percent of all of our orders came from at the time,” revealed Primorac.
Intensive testing
He explained that they are now technologically ready for production, because they have been internally testing a dozen Choncha pots for a year now and, as he says, the results are very good. Choncha contains sensors for light, soil moisture, air humidity and temperature. In addition, it also contains a container for water and can independently irrigate the plant for up to a month and a half.
Plant lovers can become more knowledgeable thanks to Choncha
Choncha currently has a database of more than 500 plants and can help users find out exactly which plant they have, it can then recommend conditions for growing it well. It will automatically irrigate the soil and alert the user if there is a problem. If you don’t have a plant yet but are planning on getting one, then you can put Choncha itself in the place where you would like the plant to live, and in a few days, based on the data from the sensors, the application will advise the you which plants would be optimal to put in that place.
