an interactive catalogue
I didn’t know if startups even existed in this country. and I was afraid to ask about it. the Kosovo Startups edition
This catalogue is a series of story-based experiences that will let us share with you the hypervibrant startup ecosystem of Kosovo. The project has been supported by The Deutsche Gesellschaft fĂźr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
iOS
Android
The kosovo startups edition For a full experience, download the Zappar app on your phone through App Store or Google Play. Anytime this sign appears, scan it for a whole new range of information.
Let’s get to the story.
Here we go:
Ever heard of them?
How about this event?
Pic. 1 - Oculus Connect - a virtual reality developer conference held by the Facebookowned headset maker. Pic. 2 - SLUSH - World’s Leading Startup Event. Where 20,000 tech heads come for more than inspiration.
v
What about... this?
this?
open the zappar app and scan me
or this?
Pic. 1 - Kickstarter - Kickstarter is the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects. Pic. 2 - The German Design Award - The German Design Council’s premium international prize. Pic. 3 - See through the Zappar App to find the latest update.
this?
this?
Pic. 1 - Ars Electronica Linz - Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979 Pic. 2 - The Global Startup Awards - An annual spotlight focus to web/tech startups in 26 countries across the globe. Pic. 5 - ArchDaily - The world’s most visited architecture website
this is did
how we it:
zombiesoup.com
A Product Featured at Oculus Connect Keynote
A story by Zombie Soup
1
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zombie soup
Main Clients
Areas of Expertise virtual reality
blockchain
artificial intellegence
health tech
I
had got everything packed for my flight the previous evening. Got ready and headed towards the McEnery Convention Center.
zombiesoup.com hello@zombiesoup.com
The place was mobbed. I was on FaceTime with Esat and Dorjan. I was jet-lagged, but as usual, they cracked a joke about me being clumsy. It was funny. In their faces I found the same laugh they’d had since we were studying. Damn. That was seven years ago. One random day we heard of the Startup Weekend being organized at the local incubator, the Innovation Centre Kosovo. We had no real idea what it was all about. We were just some developers thinking we could build anything that we put our minds to. So we decided to roll. We built our first game there. Then a few other friends joined us, and we just kept pushing. At first doing apps and anything that came our way, and, as time passed, the more we went on to specialize. Who would have thought that within only seven years we’d go from three kids to building a company with over 50 employees, building products for the largest health tech companies, and having our own game design department? Seemed crazy. As we were progressing towards the hall to hear Mark Zuckerberg present the new Oculus Rift, all those clients flashed in front of my eyes: PDC, Vianova, Touchcast, Siemens. I’d forgotten where I was for a minute. As the room filled back with silence from all the claps, the gigantic screen in the background started featuring a wall of top VR games for Oculus. For a second I thought I was still day-dreaming. I pinched someone standing close to me and asked , “Which one is your game?” to which they replied “Mine didn’t make it here”. It was unbelievable. There was Mark Zuckerberg, and right behind his back, the poster of Captain 13, our own game, was being featured among all those amazing experiences of Oculus VR. We had gone from some kids, to the top of the world’s tech stage.
Agon Avdimetaj Co-Founder
formon3d.com
A Kosovo Product A German Award
A story by Formon
2
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Formon
Awards and Certifications
Areas of Expertise 3D Printing
production
consumer product
I
was studying Architectural Design in Cyprus when I first stumbled upon 3D printing. It looked like magic! While I let my imagination run wild on what’s possible with 3D printers, I started having these daydreams about what I would do with it.
formon3d.com info@formon3d.com
At that time desktop 3D printing was not yet commercial. It was only an open-source project online that I was following very closely. 3D printing had already started a new era in designing and creating objects, since any form can be directly produced from a digital input, and can be modified by anyone on the computer using software. It all got me thinking: Architects, Designers and Engineers have to make models of all their designs, right? So getting some 3D printer kits, and offering 3D printing as a service, sounded like a great idea. Drin and Arianit, two of my friends, and I, spent 6 months trying to build the service business model, until we figured out that this technology could be really low cost and used at anyone’s home or office. Long story short, we built a team of robotics, mechatronics and software engineers, prototyped our way to a final product called Formon Core, and had to deal with numerous unforeseen development issues. We manufactured a large batch that we had pre-sold, got 2 rounds of investment and started a hardware startup from Kosovo. We got validation from our early users and from the multiple international design awards we received. It still seems unreal when looking back. We had never thought of having international pre-orders and sales from a hardware device completely designed and developed in Kosovo! But it seems that this is the reality now. It seems that we have the ability to make our own realities and kick off a whole new industry in this region. The most beautiful part of this journey is working with a highly talented pool of upcoming tech engineers in Kosovo who are eager to work on new ideas and build them from scratch.
Rron Cena Founder and CEO
skins.agency formon3d.com
At the Edge of Design, Art, and Technology
A story by Skins Agency
3
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Skins Agency
Main Publications
Areas of Expertise UX/UI
branding
web/app design
strategy design
I
t was one of those brisk weather days. Minus 16 degrees outside, but it was still sunny. I had run to the office trying to escape the cold. Started my daily emailcheck routine. Went through them, deleted a few seeming like spam, and continued.
leart@skins.agency skins.agency
I noticed an email from an art and tech festival I had been following for a long time. Their main theme had usually been put together with the MIT Media Lab, which had inspired us for years since our design company was established. Seemed like spam though, as I kept getting emails that resembled their mails, and so I almost deleted it. But stopped for a second. Went back. Opened it. I still wasn’t convinced it was genuine. The email was an invitation to exhibit at the ARS Electronica Festival. Went through it to check who’d sent it. I had to make sure that it was actually real! I mean, how often do you get to find your dream festival sending you an invite, not just to visit, but to exhibit there? The company I had founded only a few years back was about to exhibit at the world’s forefront of Design, Technology, and Art. And yes, we had had major successes before as a design agency, doing talks at International Motion Festival in Cyprus, published in MAXON Galleries, getting featured among world’s leading brands in Motion Graphics and Graphic Design books and e-galleries, but this one definitely stood out. And there we were. In September, an experimental animation we had done for TEDx was being exhibited at one of the world’s biggest festivals. We moved quickly from then on. From purely artistic and experimental, we found ourselves working a lot with startups and investment companies. We now specialize in UX/UI and Branding, and our work has helped many companies to succeed. Their successes aren’t to be downplayed either. Some went on to get funded. Others managed to pitch as the top 10 startups in SLUSH ( Europe’s biggest startup event), get incubated by TU Berlin, or even to be featured in Mashable.
Leart Zogjani Founder and CEO
formon3d.com gjirafa.com
The Internet Services Juggernaut of the Balkans
A story by Gjirafa
4
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Gjirafa
Products
Areas of Expertise e-commerce
search engine
online payment
video streaming
artificial intelligence
G
jirafa is an Internet services juggernaut based in the gjirafa.com Balkans. As an Albanian language search engine, content platform, and e-commerce company, Gjirafa dominates a variety of Internet consumer services in South East Europe. Launched for the first time in February 2013, it failed a week later. After re-launch on October 8th 2014 Gjirafa has been growing exponentially. Our vision is to build and facilitate the Internet Economy in the Balkans by focusing on core Internet services that are lacking in the region (a market of around 12 million people). As such, we are focused on the following spaces: online marketing (gjirafa.com and gjirafa AdNetwork), online retail and marketplace (gjirafa50.com, gjirafa50.al, and gjirafamall. com), online video content and TV (gjirafavideo.com), offline-to-online services (gjirafa.biz, gjirafa bus schedule, and gjirafa classified), online payment processing (gjirafaWallet, currently in development), and Albanian AI (voice and text, which is coming soon). By the end of 2018, Gjirafa had well over 3 million unique active monthly users of its product range, and over 7 million unique users access through AdNetwork. These users are from Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, and from the Albanian speaking diaspora in Germany, Switzerland, United States, Italy, Turkey, Greece, and another 50+ countries. As a pioneer in many products for the region, Gjirafa has seen a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 315% over the last four years. At the core is the Gjirafa team - a group of entrepreneurs with unmatched passion. Their hard work and persistence pushes boundaries on a daily basis. Together with our partners, investors, clients and users, we experience the impact on a daily basis of digitizing the region and of creating things that at first seem impossible, while building technology that is world standard.
Mergim Cahani Founder and CEO
solaborate.com/hello
From a Refugee to Building a Killer, Two-times Kickstarterfunded Product
A story by Hello2 - Solaborate
5
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Hello
Featured in:
Trusted by:
Awards 2017 - “Innovation of the Year” Winner - Albanian ICT Awards 2013 - “People’s Choice Award” SAP’s Palo Alto, 10th startup forum 2013 - “Best in Show Award” Web RTC Conference and Expo - TMC Atlanta, US Areas of Expertise communication
video conferencing
collaboration
telecommunication
unified communication home automation
T
solaborate.com/hello he best advice one could ever give you is that no mathello@solaborate.com ter your circumstances and background, hard work and determination always pay off. As someone who went from being a war refugee in 1999 to being a successful tech innovator and owner of my own companies, I can honestly say that without my hard work, dedication, passion for what I do, and the support of my family and community, I wouldn’t be where I am today. In 2011 my sister, Mimoza Bytyqi, and I co-founded Solaborate — a secure communication and collaboration platform that aims to simplify communication tools and services to improve people’s lives. Our company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, but we have a diverse team in offices spread over the US, Kosovo, and China. When I worked with SAP for seven years, I managed the 28 largest accounts in the Western Region of the United States, including Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Google, LinkedIn, Cisco Systems, and Facebook. Most of our clients were using high-end video conferencing solutions that are pretty expensive and require a technical team to set up. There had to be a better solution: more affordable, cross-platform, easier to use, and more versatile, which could be applied to both day-to-day business and personal uses. That is where the idea for HELLO was born. We saw gaps in the market, and in 2016 we introduced our successful HELLO communication device. In October 2018 we launched five new HELLO 2 products on Kickstarter, including HELLO Touch and the second generation of HELLO, which are disrupting the $240 billion market of Video Conferencing. HELLO 2 transforms any TV into a powerful communication device for video conferencing, digital whiteboarding, wireless screen-sharing, Alexa Voice Assistant, TV streaming, gaming, live broadcasting, camera feed with motion and voice detection + infrared night vision, and more. Our vision has always been to create a video conferencing device that adds another dimension to communication. One so immersive, your phone and devices around you respect the TV; so intelligent, it easily responds to your voice, and even your touch. With HELLO 2, our vision is now a reality.
Labinot Bytyqi Founder and CEO
labbox.education
Finalists of Europe’s Biggest Startup Event
A story by Lab Box
6
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Lab box
Main Achievements
Areas of Expertise STEM education
electonics
consumer product
I
t was one of the regular meetings at which we talked about the results of our students in jCoders. At jCoders we work daily to enrich our students’ experience by teaching them how to build with technology and help them prepare for their future.
hello@labbox.education labbox.education
That morning in particular, one story stuck in my head. A student wanted to build a light-following mechanism so he could charge his battery more efficiently through a solar cell. The trainer explained that even though in theory the student was able to draw the solution, and the trainer could confirm that he was correct, the process of building was hampered by a lot of difficulties like trying to connect wires, trying to troubleshoot each connection point and trying to test his solution. In discussion with Fiona, we both agreed that a dent in a kid’s confidence caused by unnecessary logistical difficulties like having difficulty gluing things together, shouldn’t be happening, especially where evidence of excellent problem-solving and creativity was exhibited in the design of the concept and solution. That moment was the spark for a lot of work to bring Labbox to life. Labbox is an electronics kit that was designed as the result of the philosophy of learning from mistakes. It works as a system that reinforces learning of electronics and programming. Through its indicators, Labbox is a troubleshooting friend that guides youngsters in learning from their designs. Unexpectedly, the Labbox concept won a Gold Medal in London during the Western Ballkans Summit, and was showcased as a finalist in SLUSH (the world’s leading startup event) in Helsinki. With super-charged excitment we are moving forward and hope to help every child find the confidence to use their potential and secure their future in this digital age.
Arta Shehu Co-Founder and CEO
blocknify.com
The Best Blockchain Startup of Global Startup Awards
A story by Blocknify
7
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Blocknify
Main Achievements
Areas of Expertise blochain
data fingerprinting
security
fintech
privacy
T
blocknify.com oday businesses make a lot of promises about protecthi@blocknify.com ing your data, but customers are getting tired of these promises, and they want to see proof. This can be seen in the popularity of end-to-end encryption because even the most advanced technology companies can get hacked or forced to give up their data. More and more data leaks happen every day, and there is little or no belief that this will stop or slow down.
At Blocknify, we help businesses digitize their processes by legally-signed documents and create approval processes with privacy and trust built-in. Our solution is not built on promises of doing the “right thing”. We made a solution where, even if we wanted to, we could not view, modify, or delete your signature, document, or approval process. Manual processes cost businesses trillions in overheads, inefficiencies, and lost sales. They require customers to come into a branch to sign papers to purchase a service, or contracts are mailed in the hope that they’re delivered and come back signed correctly two weeks later. Internal and external processes are only getting more complicated as regulation increases, resulting in delays, lost/misfiled paperwork, or worse, non-compliance. Due to privacy issues with cloud e-signature solutions, many businesses have resorted to creating in-house solutions that are costly and take years to implement. Privacy concerns stem from our competitors requiring businesses to upload and store their contracts in a readable format in a third-party cloud forever. These concerns are especially true for European companies and highly-regulated industries. Blocknify allows our customer to get contracts legally signed in seconds and to automate their internal and external processes with privacy and trust built-in. Trust is built-in through placing our ‘who can sign’, ‘who has signed’, and process logic within Smart Contracts to ensure no one can modify or delete it. For privacy, we provide businesses with complete control of their data at all times by leveraging their existing storage solutions and only using data fingerprints, so we never have access to the actual data. We have worked with Raiffeisen International. Global Startup Awards awarded us Best Blockchain Startup, and we are now a part of the Swiss Stock Exchange’s FinTech Accelerator.
Chris Cowles Co-founder
architectureforhumans.com
The First Architecture Social Enterprise
A story by Architecture for Humans
8
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Architecture for humans
Main Archivements
Areas of Expertise architecture urban design
research furniture design
Y
es, it’s difficult.
info@architectureforhumans.com First of all, there were the big questions, though architectureforhumans.com every question is a big one when you’re about to embark on a journey that requires mind, matter, and everything in between. Will we be able to make it? What do we want to achieve? How to prioritize everything we want to do? The talks were long, yet our enthusiasm for building the idea just kept growing. Our view on design changed when we designed a desk for a very creative young boy suffering from Amelia Syndrome, a birth defect where a person lacks one or more limbs. On his new desk he could paint with his feet, do his homework, and play on his computer. His story inspired us to work on our design manifesto, which is how we knew that we wanted to improve people’s lives through good design. We also knew for sure that the name was going to be Architecture for Humans, which we felt represented us to the core. All recently-graduated architects, all wishing to change the way the world ticks in different aspects, we didn’t care that our first office flooded with even the slightest rain, or that since it was at ground level, ants were making a home out of it too. We cared about building our concept, working for hours on end, and pushing the limits of our imagination. After that, things started speeding up. We applied for incubation at Innovation Centre Kosovo, where we moved office and saw incredible support and amazingly innovative people. We cooperated with ICK startups in different phases, and they, along with ICK, were among our first clients too. Fast-forward some time into the future where we find that ArchDaily, the most visited architecture platform in the world, is writing about one of our project proposals on tackling climate change and housing, hardly believing it ourselves, it catapulted us in the right direction. Still there are days when we stop and stare at the walls of our new office in a cozy new space, thinking about all the ups and downs that still happen. Yes, it’s difficult. There are no shortcuts. But it’s also exciting, challenging, and, when the result is just right, nothing compares to it.
Architecture for Humans
adaptech.me
The Pitchmas
A story by Adaptech
9
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adaptech
Main Partners and Clients
Areas of Expertise SAP development
SAP ERP
software development
I
t was the night before Pitchmas.
a.xhemaili@adaptech.me adaptech.me
I had just arrived in Sarajevo having switched two planes and having had a 6-hour layover. I was exhausted. Still, I was the only one from Kosovo participating in the Sarajevo Unlimited event, and as such, I felt it my duty to represent my country as best I could. I didn’t get much sleep that night. I rehearsed my pitch, tonality, gestures, everything, in front of the mirror. I knew I was doing a good job with the sound, as the neighboring rooms kept banging on the walls telling me to ‘’shut the eff up”. I didn’t care. Tomorrow we would be pitching in the Sarajevo Unlimited event in front of potential partners and investors. Some very big companies and VCs were there, the biggest one being Alibaba. I would be pitching our signature product: Fahrschule.live – an all-inone solution for driving schools in Germany. The SaaS solution had already been in use for over a year, so we knew it solved a genuine problem. We had been working on it for years. I couldn’t let my team down. I couldn’t let the Innovation Centre Kosovo down either. The only reason we were in this event was because of them. The support we got from them helped us jump to the next level. I could not fail. The pressure was high. I was still making notes, revising my pitch, as I was sitting in the audience. We were all amped-up. The time came for me to present. It started well, but then, disaster, the video projector couldn’t play the product demo. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony: technology failing on a technology company. Thankfully, our work spoke for itself. When I finished my pitch, I went straight to my hotel room, dead tired from having been up all night. During dinner that night a fellow startup congratulated me on making it to the finals. That’s how I found out. I had slept through the announcement ceremony. It was a serene moment, reflecting on how, in just a year and a half, we had come from working in an apartment, to making it to the finals in a regional conference. I was proud.
Artan Xhemaili Founder and CEO
kodelabs.co | zag-apps.com
The Acquisition
10
A story by ZAG Apps
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ZAG APPS
Merged with:
Areas of Expertise IOT
smart buildings
software development
I
t all started with a light bulb. A simple metaphorical bulb lit with an idea to enrich what our most powerful devices (phones) were capable of.
zag-apps.com kodelabs.co
At first, Zell Bakalli, my partner in crime, and I, started developing our idea into a project that took flight in 2013. We decided to call our miniscule project “ZAG APPS”, a startup company for mobile and web applications development. As brilliant as we believed ourselves to be, it’s a gross understatement to claim that finding the right support was difficult. Finding people to listen to your ideas when they have more money than time is always a challenge. Then we bumped into a glowing opportunity — ICK. Initially we received a proper workspace, mentoring, and support via ICK’s incubation program. From there we went on to develop over 50 smartphone and web applications for more than 30 clients all around the globe. Afterwards, many investors and partners approached us. Among them was “KODE Labs” — a Detroit-based commercial real estate company specializing in the IoT. We started to collaborate in developing personalized software for strategic partners and for ‘smart buildings’. Subsequently, in August 2018 we sold ZAG APPS to KODE Labs. Looking back on our accomplishments today, it isn’t hard to understand how we arrived where we are now. Unbelievable, yes. But not incomprehensible. See, we arrived at this point because not only did we try, we tried tirelessly, dedicated to the idea we knew guaranteed us a path not only to financial prosperity, but to the personal fulfillment of knowing that we moved Kosovo a notch higher in recognition and economic growth. As freelancers, it’s a gamble to see if hard work pays off. Nevertheless, investing in something we truly believed in, investing it with all we could, and setting aside our comforts, were the essential steps that separated us from defeat. Success, we came to understand, was our capability to adapt and invent.
Gentrit Gojani Founder and CEO
And THE DOESN HER
E STORY N’T END RE
ickosovo.com
INNOVATION CENTRE KOSOVO
Kosovo’s biggest startup hub
x
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ICK
Memberships
Donors
Awards People’s Choice Award 2015 - NASA Space Apps Challenge Brand & Community Champions - Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2nd Runner-up - Global Startup Weekend Areas of Expertise business incubator
trainings
events
I
n tactful step to reintegrate into the “European Sociickosovo.com ety” and to aid in our economic growth, an institution info@ickosovo.com called the Innovation Centre of Kosovo has been operating, offering opportunities for innovative businesses and entrepreneurship. The focus of ICK is to extend digital culture, support the aspirations of innovative entrepreneurs, create new jobs, aid commercially based business development with a focus on perpetuating ICT oriented activities, and our main course: Start-ups. Having many entrepreneurs with a lot of potential but inadequate conditions to implement their businesses, ICK offers hosting services, individual co-working space, promotion, fundraising and grants for these startup businesses via incubation, mentoring, entrepreneurial workshops and events where startups get to network with viable investors, especially after having joined the Angel Investors Club of Europe this recent year (2019). Thus far, ICK launched 18 Calls for Business Ideas, giving start-ups access to local and international services. 200 start-ups, mainly from the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, have been supported by ICK already through physical on-site incubation and virtual incubator services. Another ingredient in our multifaceted platform includes a helpful course of special training services that delivers market oriented, high-quality courses improving the skills of the general workforce dubbed as Training Events Department or TED. Within this branch, ICK held over 210 training courses regarding iOs, PHP, android, 3D animation, motion graphics, java, python with 2,587+ Trainees. But we do not stop there. Along with our ampt courses, we include the opportunity of acquiring space for said events dubbed as the Events Department, a multimedia space dedicated to hosting various events with the purpose of networking for different types of projects, in a casual and friendly way spatially covering 356 Events and more than 35.000 attendees. Thus, ICK has established the added title as a hub of entrepreneurial and ICT events (local and international) in Kosovo. Notable International partners we’ve worked with include the Amazon Web Service, Microsoft BizSpark, Startup Grind, SLUSH GIA, Send Grind, Impact Hub Vienna, etc., with the added International memberships such as EBN Innovation Network, IN BIA, Eban, etc., and the cherry on top; International prices being the NASA Space Apps Challenge: People’s choice award 2015 (NatEv Explore Team), Brand & Community Champions (Global Entrepreneurship Congress) and 2nd runners at Global Startup Weekend.
projects incubator
200
+1000 +100 +400 startups supported
jobs created
startups doing business
products developed
30 global awards
+10
direct investment on startups
training and events
210
training courses
+2587 +36000 356 75 354 trainees
activities’ attendees
events
co-working seats
co-working clients
Let’s not forget that crucial thing
Notes
Notes
an interactive catalogue
bet you didn’t see that coming ;)
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