Back in February, we announced our partnership with the VC fund Silicon Gardens. A partnership that, we believe, is instrumental in helping Split become what we know it can become – a Mediterranean Tech Hub.

To offer you all a brief reminder of who are Silicon Gardens and what they do. Silicon Gardens is the leading startup community in Slovenia that helps the most promising Slovenian startup teams and has increasingly started aiding startups in the region, as well.

Their support is in the form of financing (VC fund Silicon Gardens Fund II), practice-based mentoring, and community contacts.

In addition to supporting the regional startup community, they have also been working on a very interesting study that focuses on the state of said community. The study yielded a report titled “The State of Adria Tech Report”.

Here we will offer just the key findings of the report which can be read in detail on the Silicon Gardens official website.

The study reveals a remarkable growth in investments in tech companies with Slovenian, Croatian, or Serbian funders, growing from approximately €300 million between 2016 and 2017 to €3.45 billion between 2021 and 2022. This represents a notable twelve-fold investment increase, showcasing the region’s exceptional market development in recent years.

Moreover, there has been a five-fold increase in the number of exits and secondaries within the Adria region since the end of 2016.

Furthermore, the number of companies achieving a valuation of one billion dollars – in the startup world more commonly known as unicorns – has escalated from one to six, providing further evidence of the region’s burgeoning technological prowess.

However, the survey also highlights that the most successful technology companies in terms of operational performance and investment raising base their legal seats outside the Adria region. Furthermore, it is crucial to establish a more optimal taxation system concerning employee involvement in companies since the current taxation structure pushes business owners to relocate abroad even before potentially selling their stake in the company.

We invite all of you interested in the regional startup ecosystem to read through the report and even discuss its findings with the Silicon Gardens team.

Because only through mutual collaboration we can grow even more!