Croatian Post (Hrvatska pošta, HP) reported on Thursday that they have acquired the 100 percent share in the company Locodels, owned by the Croatian entrepreneur Stevica Kuharski.
The completion of the sale is expected to happen before the end of November, it is reported. Croatian Post is, however, not revealing the value of the transaction, the Croatian media reported.
You might remember seeing Mr Kuharski’s name recently on our site, and that was probably from when we reported on his other business venture and association with the Fil Rouge Capital VC Fund. But, he was well-known in Croatian business circles even before that, and Locodels is probably among his most notable entrepreneurial successes thus far. Often dubbed the “Uber for Packages”, Locodels is a company dealing in city deliveries. Most of their customers, their website shows, are small businesses that have the need to have a smaller amount of packages delivered regularly (each day or each week). The deliveries are done by the people who have cars (or other means of transportation), among them students and retirees, as well as professional drivers, such as taxi drivers or even Uber drivers, who are then paid on a per-delivery basis. In addition to Zagreb, Locodels operated in Ljubljana, Vienna, Bratislava, London and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Ivan Čulo, Croatian Post CEO has said that for them, this acquisition represents their entry to the market of the alternative delivery models. He added that they plan to offer the new service mostly to the businesses who might need it.
Stevica Kuharski, the founder of Locodels said that he sees the acquisition as a huge stimulus by the state-owned companies to the startup community in Croatia. He added that this gives great potential for Locodels to keep growing in the future.
