The Western Balkan Region consisting of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia is quickly accelerating its startup ecosystem thanks to many initiatives such as Western Balkans Investment Readiness Program fueled by Vestbee and Swiss EP, increasing interest of global investors, and the motivation of the local founders.
Today we present the TOP 25 startups from Western Balkans worth following, as they have the potential to disrupt the market not only in Europe but also in the world.
Agremo
Agremo is the product that helps agriculture move with the times thanks to sophisticated and unique technology. The process of analysing field and crop requirements consists of several steps, first a set of drones gather aerial data that are then combined into a map and uploaded to the Agremo web app. In the next step, a specific analysis based on powerful AI software is conducted generating easy-to-understand reports in PDF or shapefile format. Agremo enables farmers to make data-based decisions, simplify day-to-day operations and improve the efficiency of their work. As in the end, we all depend on agriculture, right?
ATAR
Chemicals are at the same time the best and the worst thing that has happened to agriculture. On one hand, artificial fertilizers increase the pace of production and in addition eliminate the risk of plant diseases and maggots. On the other hand, abusive usage of chemicals can destroy crops and have an awful impact on the natural environment by polluting sources of water and intoxicating local animals. The key is to find the perfect balance between those two extremes - ATAR which thanks to its exceptional AI-based spray technology can reduce the usage of chemicals by 70% making use of precise weed detection and spot spraying.
Brand Solution SPLLC
In the strive of a perfect world, we are seeking a way to give the same opportunities to all people including those with disabilities and dysfunctions. This issue is one of the main focuses of Brand Solution SPLLC, a digital marketing agency and an educational center for marginalized groups of society. The idea of a marketplace is nothing new, however, operating in such a specialized niche is quite unique in comparison to other companies devoted to training and education. People with physical disabilities account for 5% of the total population and thanks to projects such as Brand Solution SPLLC their needs can finally be heard as they are provided with a tool that allows them to gain knowledge in the fields of digital marketing and start a well-paid job.
CodeWell AI
We all know somebody that prefers texting rather than talking in person or even on the phone - such an attitude is one of the reasons why startups like CodeWell AI will soon conquer the market.
CodeWell AI is a platform where companies can easily build an AI-powered digital assistant which helps in streaming operations and improving customer experience. What distinguishes the product from other chatbots available on the market are in-built features such as human-level communication, sales process, and advising. Moreover, the chatbot is a true polyglot as it can speak any language with more than 95% accuracy. The company focuses solely on the banking market and offers the product on a pure SaaS model.
Cooperation Manager
When speaking about farming we should highlight main parties that are crucial for fruitful cooperation: traders, cooperator-farmers and agricultural product traders-elevators, millers, exporters etc. However, the main problem that they usually run into is the lack of fast and simple exchange of information. Cooperation Manager is the solution in a form of phone and software application that not only enables easy contact with your client but also delivers daily news and interesting insights from the agricultural sector.
Dasma App - OnAirMedia
Dasma App comes to the rescue of all nervous brides and grooms by making wedding plans a little less stressful. Now it’s possible to organize every part of the wedding reception within one phone application including activities such as reserving a venue, choosing a date, verifying musicians, booking catering and every other sideshow you can imagine. It’s also beneficial for the hired parts as it enables waiters, DJs, and photographers to reach a wider audience. The automatic booking system gives the young couple a guarantee of saving time and nerves due to easy access to professionals in one place.
Erudera
When it comes to decision-making, every advice is objective and sometimes a subjective, cold, robotic guidance is the most desired one. Almost every young human faces such a problem when choosing the right university. Finding all the required information, comparing all the options, and making the final decision is a very painful time-consuming experience students have to go through. Erudera addresses this issue by offering a subjective and comprehensive recommendation system that makes the process of choosing the right college frustration-free. It is a specific high-advanced AI and machine learning solution that shapes the future of decision-making.
FinqUP
Data says that 80% of investment app users in the world lose their money within the first 6 months due to a lack of knowledge and experience. What’s more, it’s quite efficient for the app owners as in so many cases customers are charged for losing their money. To avoid such tremendous waste of capital we can use FinqUP, an investing app for beginners that provides an intuitive program where only one click separates you from hundreds of verified and profitable trading strategies from 3rd party providers. The simplification of the way that you can find and invest, results in much more responsible decision making. The biggest advantage of FinqUP is the possibility to learn about the market nedds and make a profit transparently.
Innovation Dooel
Arrhythmias, cardiomyopathy, pulmonary embolism, marfan syndrome are only a few of the most common heart diseases that encounter more and more people every day. Nevertheless, medicine and engineering give us a wider range of possibilities to identify and fight health problems thanks to inventions like Innovation Dooel. It not only offers a 24/7 remote real-time monitoring and analytic device in the form of a wearable ECG patch put on a human's chest but is also successful in detecting abnormalities. The device tracks your heart rate constantly and can alert your doctor in case of any cardiac disorder.
innSono
Although Artificial Intelligence is present in almost every type of data processing, when it comes to audio files using such a solution is still a privilege that only few can afford. Once a manufacturer needs an AI app for specific audio issues, for instance, bad sound detection, it faces plenty of obstacles starting from problems with collecting a sufficinet amount of data and finishing with setting up a team of experts experienced in dealing with both AI and audio files. The innSono software is meant for both experts and amateurs thanks to its wide range of features that support developing accurate, customized machine and deep learning solutions for the whole process from audio data acquisition to the deployment of created AI models.
Joey
The recent outburst of COVID-19 has shown us how important it is to keep track of health issues and focus more on preventing illnesses by periodic doctor checkups, well-balanced nutrition and regular examination from the very beginning of life. Nowadays the maternal and child health market is extremely defective due to the gaps between prenatal and postnatal care, lack of cooperation between parents and various types of practitioners, shortage in product recommendations from trusted sources and no access to flexible, tailored, on-demand support across the mother-infant lifecycle. Joey is the first on-demand marketplace and telehealth platform addressing such as issue where you can go from “search” to “speak” with an expert in less than 30 minutes which is especially crucial for nursing problems throughout the night.
Kagera AI
Working with energy sources like oil or gas involves taking extreme precautions due to the high risk of unexpected gas exposure, flammable leakages that can be hugely dangerous to humans, assets and environment. Kagera AI is a machine learning solution that can minimize danger, save time and preserve money. It offers a cleantech web cloud application consisting of the following features: short, mid and long term recommendations for preventing the risk, responsive real-time analytics and dynamic reports. The most desirable markets for Kagera AI are Egypt, Qatar, UK, Indonesia but parallelly the team's works on establishing partnerships in Canada and USA.
Konceptiva
Statistics say that 70% of each work-related training is forgotten within the first two weeks which results in a tremendous waste of money and employees’ time. One of the biggest reasons for that is the incapability of the brain to process and learn information that is rarely used and needed in day-to-day work life. Konceptiva aims to change that by implementing a gamified HRTech platform for efficient training under the name Coach. Coach makes reinforcement training easy to create and delivers it in a handy form of a content-based game that employees can play on their phones. Thanks to Konceptiva, employees boost their knowledge and the employer gets detailed real-time information on the progress. Digitalization of the work training is the answer to the fast-changing world and the need to broaden the team’s horizons.
Opti.Space
The rapid spread of coronavirus has accelerated the switch to hybrid and remote work among workers from a variety of sectors all over the world. Unfortunately, it has created a series of problems, most of which are somehow connected with managing people and creating a safe space work environment. While working from home, people tend to be less engaged, minimize knowledge transfer, reduce work hours and have strong problems with building society around the company’s values. Managers constantly seek ways to enhance engagement, keep employees connected and build a company culture in a new virtual reality. App created by Opti.Space is called Culturate and has four main features: Water cooler, Kudos, Location schedule, and 1:1 or group invites. The platform enables easy access to all team members and tries to substitute the advantages of an office filled with people eager to help, communicate and cooperate.
Orea Bazaar
Fast fashion is an inexpensive clothing production without respecting the environment and human labor that aims to satisfy mass-market needs for the latest trends. One of the possible ways of avoiding this phenomenon is choosing handmade products that are unique and much safer for the world around us - unfortunately, designers struggle to find retailers, customers and an easily accessible place to sell their products. Orea Bazaar supports the handmade industry by providing an online marketplace that helps to connect manufacturers with consumers from all around the world. The platform focuses on an individual approach and the high quality of proposed products in order to obtain the visibility of the vendors and the right matches for users.
Qpick
However, we cannot imagine a street without a traditional store, in light of the growing number of internet shops, the store owners from the neighborhood struggle to scale and engage customers due to the gap between the digital and physical space. Qpick focuses on improving the vendor's position by creating a bridge between physical retail and consumers’ smartphones. The app connects sellers and shoppers based on their interests, and location, and then it accompanies customers during the shopping process to make sure they don't get overwhelmed by promotions or irrelevant content.
Sales.Rocks
Due to the lack of a transparent B2B prospecting process in most companies, SDRs usually miss their quotas. The solution proposed by Sales.Rocks gathers B2B contacts and company data from hundreds of sources which makes the process of automated prospecting possible. This AI-driven platform helps to find contact details from over 130 million companies and supports creating outreach messages via LinkedIn and email with advanced hyper-personalization. Sales.Rocks is already being used by over 3000 users mostly from Western Europe but the plan is to get a global reach.as the chosen market.
OpenPay
When it comes to domestic payments most of them are processed by international card schemes that cause high infrastructure costs for the banks and merchants, hence the resistance of merchants on accepting electronic payments. The project offered by Symmetric Group called OpenPay is developing the first QR payment ecosystem that allows customers to pay by a mobile app at one end and merchants to accept low-cost payments at the other end. Increased usage of the OpenPay with the users insisting on paying via QR code creates a loyalty program for the consumers that results in collecting cashback. The method is beneficial for the banks as well as it allows to save a lot of costs and offer innovative payment methods to their clients.
Synapse Aviation LLC
Sifting through hundreds of notices, being familiar with every one of compliance requirements and having EFB (electronic flight bag - tablet) devices filled with hundreds of PDF documents with thousands of pages is just a normal day in a pilot’s life. Unfortunately, it connects with a responsibility that is hard to imagine for anyone who has never flown behind the steering wheel of an airplane. Although the concept of “paperless cockpit” was theoretically established then in reality those documents have just been converted into PDFs. The tool presented by Synapse Aviation LLC called “Airport Briefing” is an interactive software platform that provides fast and easy access to only relevant information by using the latest 3D technology in providing a strong visual experience of an effective briefing process. As Synapse Aviation LLC aims to increase the safety level of passengers and pilots among its key market groups are the biggest aviation companies and top pilot schools from around the world.
TePema
TePema addresses the problem of large and medium enterprises' fixed costs by designing and producing autonomous vertically housed plant recreational spaces that everyone can enjoy. Their product, Facade 2.0, is an innovative greenery application that can reduce electricity bills up to 30% within a year. The product also includes vertical panels that cover and insulate building thermally that is built up from 100% recycled materials.
Transoformify
Transformify works as an integrated platform that provides cloud Infrastructure, development studio, and SaaS marketplace for businesses of all sizes. It can be used to create advanced enterprise-grade software and SaaS projects which turn more people into developers with visual tools and editors. Digital transformation for business is hard, expensive, misunderstood and usually proceeded completely wrong but it is all solved by Tansformify with its right cloud technology for innovation and productivity to collaborate, develop, test, iterate and deliver faster. The statistics show that low-code platforms are shaping the future of digital transformation as it is said to reach $187 billion by 2030.
UVC MAX
Disinfection of items, floors and rooms is necessary for every office however using chemicals without essential knowledge can simply do more harm than good as it may easily destroy surfaces. UVC MAX solves the problem by developing UVC technology-based product that not only disinfects but also measures and predicts when the process should last longer. As traditional ultraviolet lamps use up over time, they are not capable of disinfecting as effectively as at the beginning of the usage, which leaves us with incomplete hygiene of items around. Germinator 1 and Germinator Mini are devices proposed by UVC MAX as they can be used multiple times and eliminate human error in case of disinfection. What is more, based on gained experience and knowledge, UVC MAX design and produce customized devices for the needs of a specific industry.
Vidict Media Server
The problem is pretty simple - viewers are got used to HD television and expect the same quality when it comes to streaming without taking into consideration the number of side processes that may even cause buffering and poor picture quality. Vidict Media Server works alongside the publisher's origin server and CDN architecture by pairing perfect peers, using minimal server resources and thanks to WebRTC creates a peer-to-peer mesh network that allows viewers to load video content from one another. Numbers speak for themselves - Vidict Media Server is handling 40 million video sessions per month in almost every place on earth and has increased video delivery capacity by 60% for its clients.
Vorhol
Ironically, in the task-oriented world, most of the management platforms require too much time to complete the most basic operations that need to be done and consequently they do not fulfill the expectations of C and 2nd level managers. Vorhol team proposes Task’n Go platform that aims to fill the gap between existing solutions and users’ requirements in an easily accessible form of a mobile app that is engaging, fun to work with and time-efficient and money-saving. What distinguishes Task’n Go from competitors is a strong focus on obstacles that management boards are facing every day such as lack of real-time priorities, well-prepared reports and effective methods to track tasks and inefficiency of end-users.
Wellbit
As the problems outside of work have an enormous impact on the work itself it is clear that to enhance efficiency, employers should take care of employees’ wellbeing. Among others, we need to talk loudly about workplace stress, burnout, poor leisure time management and difficulties in establishing relationships as it all affects low productivity and general retention. By connecting natural techniques of gratitude meditation and savoring with new learning trends and the latest technologies, Wellbit aims to boost the mental health of its users with an accessible mobile app, which helps to create and keep a positive attitude in and outside of a workplace by introducing uplifting activities in the form of challenges, building a habit of capturing important moments and sharing them with the most important people in your life such as family, friends and coworkers.
Related Posts:
TOP 100 Innovative Companies From European Startup Challenge (by Aleksandra Wirth, Vestbee)
European Startup Challenge - Top 10 Innovative Regional Companies (by lya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
TOP 100 CEE Startups That Closed Funding Rounds In 2020 (by Konrad Koncerewicz, VC Community Builder, Vestbee)
