According to successful start-up companies, Serbia is among the leading countries in Southeast Europe, and one of the main advantages of the start-up Eco-system of Serbia is the global connection, that is, the intensity of communication of the founders of these companies from Serbia with relevant companies from abroad.
On the other hand, the domestic start-up Eco-system is also characterized by an extremely low level of investment and customer awareness outside Serbia, according to the first Start-up scanner presented by the Digital Serbia Initiative.
“The start-up scanner makes it clear that domestic start-ups are reducing the success that makes us one of the leading Southeast European countries in the sector”, the report said.
By the way, the Start-ap scanner was created in cooperation with the NGO Digital Serbia Initiative with the Startup Genome organization from San Francisco, which included Belgrade and Novi Sad as the only point in this part of the global analysis of 54 global start-up Eco-systems. In addition to detailed findings from US experts, the Start-ap scanner brings the results of local researchers from Digital Serbia and its members, EY and PwC.
There are currently between 200 and 400 start-ups in Belgrade and Novi Sad, which is in line with the average for the initial phase of development, the statement said.
It is similar to the number of start-ups in cities in the wider region such as Warsaw and Bucharest, while that number is twice the number of start-ups in Budapest.
Home-based startups have raised more than 143 million euros in investment over the last ten years, and more than 80 percent of the money has gone to just two companies.
“The challenge of raising money becomes even more apparent if we know that more than 50 percent of domestic start-ups have not attracted any investment and are fully funded from their own sources”, the report said.
Startups from Belgrade and Novi Sad receive almost 90 percent less money than the global average for ecosystems in the same phase in the early stages.
The authors of the report conclude that the key role in solving this problem is the role of the state, which must create incentives and a regulatory environment that will increase the number of domestic and foreign investors.
The primary clients of Serbian start-ups are most often companies (57 percent), while 41 percent of them sell directly to end users.
Compared to the global average, more domestic start-ups are turned to foreign markets – only 22 percent are oriented to the markets of Serbia and the former Yugoslavia, while 75 percent target the markets of Europe and North America, writes Dnevnik.
