What actually exists
The University of Rijeka runs STEP RI, a science and technology park, alongside a city-run startup incubator operating since 2013, and Infobip maintains an office in the city as part of its wider Croatian footprint.
That is real institutional infrastructure, and it is worth being honest about its scale: unlike Zagreb or Split, no verifiable employee-count or funding figures could be confirmed for Rijeka's tech sector specifically. This entry rests on infrastructure that exists, not on a headline outcome the city has yet produced.
What Rijeka actually is
Croatia's principal cargo port and third-largest city, with an economy built primarily on shipping, logistics and industry rather than technology. The science park and incubator represent a genuine, deliberate attempt to diversify that economy, not evidence that the diversification has already succeeded at scale.
The buyer
A conventional Croatian port-and-industrial city market — shipping, logistics, manufacturing, and the retail and hospitality that serves that workforce. The startup and science-park layer is present but small relative to the city's core economy.
The practical read
Sell to the Rijeka that exists: a working port city with steady, unglamorous demand for good local business websites — not the tech hub the incubator hopes it will eventually become.
Sources
Caveats and sourcing
- Verifiable — the existence of STEP RI, the incubator's 2013 start, and Infobip's office in the city.
- Explicitly unverified — no reliable employee-count or funding data for Rijeka's tech sector was found; this piece deliberately does not invent scale the research doesn't support.
- Characterising claims — the port-city market description is interpretation.