The City of Zagreb has secured €300,000 to support the next generation of startups, with this year’s cycle of ZICER acceleration programs drawing record interest—attracting as many as 110 applicant teams and startups.
Zagreb, June 23, 2026 – Today, the Zagreb Innovation Centre (ZICER) unveiled the latest cohort of its acceleration programs, selecting 20 standout teams and startups following a rigorous screening process. Backed by the City of Zagreb, these flagship programs have spent the past decade systematically strengthening the local startup ecosystem, creating a launchpad for market-ready tech solutions primed for growth and international expansion.
This year’s cycle drew record-breaking interest from the startup community. Out of 110 applicant teams and startups, just 20 were selected following a rigorous evaluation and screening process.
The technologies powering this year’s cohort showcase the sheer breadth of the Croatian innovation scene—ranging from AI, drones, and fintech to digital health, energy, robotics, agritech, SaaS solutions, and consumer products. These solutions target concrete challenges, spanning everything from business process optimization and financial accessibility to advanced diagnostics and quality of life.
To support this year’s cohort of startups, the City of Zagreb has secured a total of €300,000, continuing its investment in the development of innovative entrepreneurship and new technologies.
The City of Zagreb continuously invests in the development of the innovation ecosystem, as startups are the ones driving new solutions, job creation, and fresh energy into the economy. The high number of applications shows that Zagreb has a robust entrepreneurial and tech community, while ZICER provides teams with high-quality support during the most critical stages of their development.
Marin Lukas, Deputy Head of the City Office for Digitalization, New Technologies and Technical Affairs.
This year, ZICER is running four acceleration programs in parallel, each tailored to different stages of startup development. Startup Factory is designed for early-stage teams and startups that are just shaping their business models and their first market
steps. Deep Tech is aimed at scientists and research teams looking to turn their research results into commercially viable products. Global provides support for startups preparing to enter international markets, while Growth is designed for startups ready for further growth, business scaling, and strengthening their market position.
Throughout the programs, the selected teams and startups will work alongside mentors and experts specializing in business development, technology, sales, finance, investment, marketing, and international expansion. Through a mix of lectures, workshops, one-on-one mentorship, networking events, and the collaborative environment at ZICER, they will refine their products, prototypes, business models, and go-to-market strategies.
This cohort truly demonstrates how much the Croatian startup scene has matured. We are seeing more and more teams coming in not just with an idea, but with a clear understanding of the problem they are solving, the technology they are developing, and the ambition to build globally relevant companies right here out of Zagreb. Through these acceleration programs, ZICER provides them with exactly what they need most at this stage—knowledge, mentorship, infrastructure, access to an expert network, business development support, and financial backing.
Frane Šesnić, CEO of ZICER
Over the years, ZICER’s acceleration programs have established themselves as a pivotal platform for tech startup development in Croatia. The programs have shaped cohorts of founders who successfully turned their ideas into commercially viable products, secured investments, acquired customers, and expanded their businesses beyond Croatia.
With this year’s cycle, ZICER further strengthens Zagreb’s role as a hub for innovation, technology, and startup entrepreneurship, reinforcing the importance of continuous support for teams developing solutions with the potential to drive new economic value.
The New Cohort of ZICER Acceleration Program Participants
Startup Factory
Argus is an Edge AI predictive maintenance system that enables users to detect mechanical issues in industrial machinery early, before they escalate into costly breakdowns. By continuously monitoring vibration and temperature, Argus learns the baseline behavior of motors and pumps, alerting maintenance teams to anomalies and potential failures. It is designed to make predictive maintenance simple, affordable, and accessible to every factory.
ARFE (Aircraft Records & Fleet Evaluation) is a due diligence platform for aircraft and component transactions. Utilizing AI models, it reads and verifies extensive technical
aircraft documentation, which experts today review mostly manually, while assessing the condition and market value of the aircraft and their key components. The result is a consistent, audit-ready valuation upon which buyers and sellers can base more confident decisions in multi-million-euro transactions.
DharaOne is a platform born out of the belief that small farmers and family farms deserve a digital tool that truly understands what fieldwork looks like. The platform doesn’t add to the farmer’s workload—it organizes it, bringing everything a family farm needs into a single, simple, and accessible platform. It is envisioned as the foundation for the digital transformation of small agricultural holdings, scaling toward advanced capabilities such as analytics and precision agriculture.
EnigMaker is a Zagreb-based startup developing smart, IoT-connected locks and modular puzzles for escape rooms, offering solutions ranging from individual components to full-scale turn-key room designs (from “empty space to ready escape room”). The team brings together Sven Matković and Marta Peričić, students at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb with experience in robotics projects, alongside Ivan Kunović, who holds years of industry experience and leads Robokacija. They are currently testing their first sensor-fusion-based prototypes, aiming to deploy pilot installations in Zagreb and modernize the escape room industry by replacing outdated mechanical locks with smart electronic solutions.
ForestAI is a platform developed by the team behind Crošnjica, a proven reforestation initiative in Croatia, as well as projects like Boranka and Šumoborci. The Miyawaki method relies on the deep, intuitive expertise of botanists and ecologists who predict interactions among dozens of plant species—knowledge that no digital tool can currently replicate. ForestAI changes that: it translates expert ecological knowledge into a data-driven AI system that models interactions between plant species and optimizes forest composition for any given location—enabling cities, corporations, and landscape designers to plant high-impact, biodiverse forests anywhere.
FynTwin combines embedded professional expertise with real client data to transform accounting records into reliable business insights and analytics. It delivers significant time savings and elevates the quality of financial analysis to a level previously accessible only through the work of top-tier experts. Its RAG system automatically generates and analyzes financial statements based on general ledger entries, strictly adhering to HSFI, IFRS, the Croatian Accounting Act, local tax regulations, and an in-house knowledge base of over 1,000 pages built from real-world practice.
KAGE Ghostpad is an invisible controller hidden inside a mousepad. It allows gamers, creators, and professionals to trigger shortcuts, macros, and commands without any extra hardware cluttering their desks. The project aims to transform one of the most passive desk objects into a completely new category of input devices.
Lyzor Therapeutics is developing a platform that utilizes machine learning to predict which bacteriophages could target and eliminate E. coli bacteria. The project aims to accelerate the selection of therapeutic candidates, particularly for infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The platform is currently being prepared for experimental validation, meaning laboratory testing of the model’s predictions.
proto2 develops digital solutions for engineering and high-tech industries, with a focus on simulation, optimization, and technical decision support. The project is aimed at accelerating complex product development while reducing the time required for engineering analysis and design iterations. The goal is to enable more efficient product development at a lower cost, faster decision-making, and increased competitiveness in industries such as aerospace, automotive, and other fields that rely on advanced simulations.
Growth
Crobotic Solutions is a startup developing innovative, AI-powered technologies designed for faster robot integration into dynamic, demanding, and flexible manufacturing processes. Their FORGE software allows operators to program robots through learning-from-demonstration, completely eliminating the need for traditional coding, thereby saving both time and money. Alongside developing its core product, the startup executes EU-funded projects and collaborates with academic and industrial partners.
Flatie is a SaaS platform digitalizing residential property management in Croatia by connecting co-owners, building representatives, and professional property managers in one place. The platform enables e-voting with legally binding identification, document and financial management, and smart notifications, replacing fragmented communication via paperwork, bulletin boards, and WhatsApp groups. The Flatie team consists of founders with legal and technical backgrounds, and the product was developed in full compliance with the new Building Management and Maintenance Act (ZUOZ), which entered into force in 2025.
Odonata Technologies is an intelligent warehouse inventory system that compares the actual physical stock with WMS data, converting identified discrepancies into accurate, structured, and operationally actionable inventory data. Odonata
provides warehouses with a reliable view of their actual inventory levels, item locations, and lines requiring attention, completely eliminating the need for manual counting and without disrupting regular warehouse operations.
PERMEDIS (Personalized Medical Solutions) is a startup that develops and manufactures personalized medical products using additive manufacturing, specifically 3D printing. The startup has developed two prototypes in the field of gynecology and has established an active collaboration with professors from the University of Zagreb and the University Hospital Centre Zagreb. It is currently operating within the ZICER Incubator and participating in ZICER’s acceleration program.
RenewXchange is a digital matchmaking platform that enables renewable energy producers and corporate buyers in Southeast Europe to quickly and transparently conclude PPA agreements—long-term contracts for the direct purchase of green energy at fixed prices. It provides buyers with more affordable green energy while ensuring producers have a guaranteed buyer and higher project profitability, all while utilizing AI to automate analysis, financial viability calculations, and contract generation. Users simply input their energy supply or demand, and the platform automatically pairs them with compatible partners based on key criteria, with the RenewXchange team providing full support through to contract signing.
TINFE HTS is developing a cloud-based software solution that automatically corrects the inner filter effect, a common optical distortion in laboratory fluorescence measurements. The project enables biotech, pharmaceutical, academic, and analytical laboratories to obtain more accurate data without purchasing new equipment or altering existing workflows.
Global
Green Energy Pal is developing Enpulse—an energy management platform that supports the green energy transition and energy digitalization. Enpulse delivers benefits to end-users of energy, as well as to companies installing and investing in energy assets (solar PV, batteries, EV chargers, etc.). It also functions as an asset optimization and management system, for example, enabling the optimal operation of battery storage systems under dynamic energy pricing.
GRID one is developing a platform for the collection, advanced processing, and visualization of electricity consumption data, which is often unavailable, difficult to access, incomplete, or displayed only in cumulative form. The platform collects metering data from network users with a high volume of billing metering points via P1-Link, utilizing an integrated AI module to boost energy efficiency.
Yure.ai is developing an AI platform to boost the efficiency of legal teams, powered by a system of specialized AI agents. The platform analyzes and drafts legal documents, conducts research, and supports high-quality decision-making, allowing legal professionals to focus on strategic work. The project aims to redefine how legal teams operate and set a new standard for AI application in the legal industry.
Deep Tech
Fibryion is developing a production technology for cellulose food packaging film, designed as a customizable solution manufactured from agricultural residues and wood industry by-products. Fibryion’s film is cost-competitive, biodegradable, 100% bio-based, sustainable, recyclable, and features a low carbon footprint compared to commercial fossil-based or bio-based competitors. The manufactured film fully complies with the sustainability and circular bioeconomy criteria prescribed by the EU.
Symbiont is an operating system for AI employees that enables organizations to convert internal knowledge, processes, and communication norms into specialized digital agents for sales, customer support, and onboarding. Developed by 7Sense Digital d.o.o., the solution is based on the doctoral research of co-founder Stella Antolović in the field of organizational knowledge management, applying RAG architecture and behavioral marketing to train and manage persona-based AI employees. Unlike generic large language models, Symbiont operates exclusively over an organization’s private knowledge base, thereby eliminating hallucinations and delivering measurable, real-time business impact.
