7th edition of the Balkan Venture Forum (BkVF) in Zagreb, Croatia

The 7th edition of the Balkan Venture Forum (BkVF) takes place in Zagreb, Croatia on December 3-4th, 2015. It presents a great opportunity to showcase two current trends in the Balkans: the quality of the thriving Croatian startup community and the second development phase of the regional innovation ecosystem with new funds, incubators and more mature startups.

The Croatian eco-system has marked several success stories from this perspective, the most outstanding being the ones of Bellabeat (a Croatian-Slovenian pregnancy aid app that successfully attracted investment worth $3 million) and Farmeron (a web data service that help farmers keep track of their farm’s performance). Apart from launching innovative businesses, the Croatian community has also indulged into founding many organizations and events that help nurture the startup spirit in this European country. ZIP, Netokracija, CRANE, StartupCamp, Shift are the key representatives of this category.

Since 2012, Balkan Venture Forum (BkVF) has been helping establish a thriving Balkan's startup ecosystem. Its bi-annual event schedule already brought the regional innovation community to Skopje, Belgrade, Sofia, Tirana, Sarajevo, and Nova Gorica. Alongside the other early regional players, such as Launchub and Eleven, we have also witnessed the steady development of the region in the past few years with the following progress:

• A regional community has been established;
• Local innovation communities have come into existence at various locations;
• Competences on local and cross-regional startup acceleration(SuperFounders) have been built;
• A second wave of better financed and more experienced funds have appeared;

The program of this edition focuses on showcasing top innovation startups from the Balkans to regional and global investors. Therefore it will be dominated by pitching sessions of the Startup competition and excellent networking opportunities for all attendees. Over 100 active investors are expected to attend and scout for investment, presenting a unique opportunity for the best startups from the region.

This year’s BkVF will be the host of the Pioneers of the Balkans' final pitching competition of about 70 startups from the area in front of over 100 investors from the region, Europe, and all over the world. The application will be open to competitors until November 25.

Apply for the Startup Competition: www.balkanventureforum.org/startup-competition/

BkVF will also host an Innovation showcase, space for exhibiting selected startups from the region. Apply to exhibit: www.balkanventureforum.org/innovation-showcase/