Croatia has two unicorns and neither was founded in Zagreb
- Infobip — founded 2006 in Vodnjan
- Rimac — Sveta Nedelja, founded 2009
- Infobip Shift, Zadar
- €1.735bn Infobip revenue in 2023
Three editorial pieces on the Croatia digital market. Editorial register, no product pitch. Companion series: France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Luxembourg.
How Croatia’s tech scene grew
Infobip is founded in Vodnjan
Not in Zagreb, but in a small town in Istria. The communications company went on to report revenue of €1.735 billion in 2023 across more than 4,000 employees globally.
The digital economy here
Croatia has produced two unicorns, which is a remarkable number for a country of its size — and the detail everyone gets wrong is that neither was founded in the capital. Infobip started in 2006 in Vodnjan, a small town in Istria. Rimac Automobili is headquartered in Sveta Nedelja, just outside Zagreb’s city limits. Zagreb ended up as the operational and talent centre for both anyway, which is the genuinely useful lesson: the capital won on talent, infrastructure and access, not on being where the founders happened to be.
The scale is real rather than notional. Infobip reported €1.735 billion in revenue for 2023 across more than 4,000 employees worldwide, and its Zagreb innovation campus alone holds more than 800 staff. It reached unicorn status through a $200 million investment in July 2020. Rimac followed as the second, with Porsche taking a 24% stake in March 2021.
Outside those two, the honest picture is smaller and worth stating plainly. Split has tracked an organised tech scene since 2010 and hosts homegrown product studios alongside an Infobip office, but tourism and maritime trade remain the dominant local economy. Rijeka has a university science park and a city incubator running since 2013 — real institutional infrastructure, but no headline company or funding story of its own yet. It is a port city first.
Where the work happens
Concentrated in Zagreb, with a genuine second scene in Split and a deliberate, still-early attempt at one in Rijeka.
ZICER, Zagreb
The Zagreb Innovation Centre — Croatia’s national startup-ecosystem hub, and the default landing place for growing tech companies in the country.
Infobip
Croatia’s first unicorn, with a dedicated Zagreb innovation campus of more than 800 staff and further offices in Split and Rijeka — much of the country’s tech employment map traces back to this one company.
Split Tech City
The community organisation that has tracked Split’s technology ecosystem since 2010, alongside local digital-product studios reporting 30 or more staff each.
Rimac
Electric hypercars, founded 2009 by Mate Rimac and based in Sveta Nedelja outside Zagreb. Porsche has held a 24% stake since March 2021.
Events worth knowing
Croatia hosts one genuinely international developer conference, and it is not in the capital either.
Infobip Shift
Held in Zadar and billed as the largest developer conference in Southern Europe, drawing more than 5,500 developers in 2025. Infobip acquired it in 2021 and appointed founder Ivan Burazin as Chief Developer Experience Officer; there is now an American edition in Miami.
How Croatian businesses buy websites
For most Croatian businesses the dominant commercial fact is not the tech sector — it is the season. The Adriatic coast draws a summer population many times the resident one and then goes quiet. A supplier who understands the summer surge and the winter lull reads as genuinely local in a way generic advice never will.
Shops, cafés and hospitality
On the coast this is the whole game. Seasonal hours, current prices, and a page that loads for a visitor on foreign roaming with one bar of signal.
Tourism and charter
Searched months ahead in German, Italian and English as much as in Croatian. Say what you offer, what it costs, and when you actually operate.
Trades and home services
Year-round and Croatian-first. Name the towns you cover — coastal service areas are long and thin, and customers know it.
Professional and B2B services
Zagreb’s buyers are methodical and Croatian-first, though the Infobip and Rimac orbit is internationally exposed. Be specific and publish your company details.
How well do you know Croatia’s digital economy?
5 quick questions. Get all 5 right and you win a 10% off discount code. Every answer is somewhere on this page.
Croatia quiz · 1 of 5
Where was Infobip, Croatia’s first unicorn, founded?
Why FastSites works here
A seasonal business cannot afford a site that takes months to build and then needs an agency to change the opening hours. A single page you can keep current yourself suits the trading pattern far better than a large site that goes stale every October.
Live in days, published price, built mobile-first and light enough for a visitor on roaming data. Tell us which languages your customers arrive in — on this coast that is rarely just one.
The Croatia series
One piece per city, written in an editorial register for people assessing the market rather than shopping for a supplier.