In order for us to have a unicorn in the next few years, we need support mechanisms to enable their growth on the global market, along with mentorship from a larger number of successful entrepreneurs and international experts Photo Credit
The startup ecosystem continues to grow due to the establishment of a large number of “young” startups as shown in Startup Scanner.
It is important to have a greater number of new startups in the ecosystem, since many of them will not survive. However, in order to move to the next phase of ecosystem development, we need a significantly higher number of scaleups on the global market,” says Tanja Kuzman, CEO of the Digital Serbia Initiative (DSI).
According to the latest Startup Scanner, created by DSI through the “Venture an Idea” project implemented with the support of USAID, the number of startups that have the potential to become unicorns is significantly smaller when compared to ecosystems similar to ours.
“The emergence of unicorns begins with founders identifying a pressing global challenge early on and developing a solution that delivers substantial value to a large user base. Later on the key is in achieving exponential revenue growth while keeping cost increases minimal. Currently, 80% of startups launch products on local or regional markets, while lacking expertise in sales and marketing,” explains Kuzman.
Prior to taking the role of CEO at DSI, you worked in the private and public sectors, as well as working for international organisations. In your opinion, which of these sectors should provide the most support for the further development of startups?
— All three sectors—public, private and international—play a crucial role in developing the startup ecosystem. If we look back, even those startups that were launched “in garage” emerged in ecosystems that were strategically and systematically built with the support of all three sectors.
DSI believes that the private sector should provide the greatest support for the ecosystem development, because it understands what is needed for the global success and positioning in the global markets.
This role is closely connected to the roles that the public and international sectors should play.
The Digital Serbia initiative will focus on the development of the startup ecosystem, informal education, entrepreneurship, and the establishing of strong international links
The public sector should create a regulatory framework that eases business operations for startups, such as simplified procedures, tax incentives and specially trained officers to work with innovative companies. Meanwhile, international institutions should offer access to expertise from developed markets in an effort to accelerate ecosystem development and ensure the creation of the required knowledge and resources for global markets.
In your previous role as Director for Digital, Startups and Innovation, you led projects across nine countries of Southeast Europe. How would you compare Serbia’s innovation system to those of these other countries?
— According to the Global Innovation Index for 2024, Serbia ranks 52nd, behind Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, which indicates that there’s room for improvement.
In terms of the development of a startup ecosystem, Serbia lags behind some countries in the region in terms of the number of unicorns, innovation commercialisation and total investments in startups.
On the other hand, we have the most developed innovation and startup ecosystem among the Western Balkan countries. In this context, the question is who we want to compare ourselves with and what we want to achieve as an ecosystem.
Instead of Economy 4.0, we are now already talking about Economy 5.0, which entails, among other things, business transformation through AI, automation, the personalisation of services etc. We therefore need to focus on successfully transitioning to Economy 5.0.
Despite us having globally recognised experts and teams, our share of AI startups in the total number of startups is lower than in many European countries.
The DSI today brings together over 30 organisations and member companies from various sectors that are relevant to the growth of the digital ecosystem. With this experience and knowledge, in which areas do you identify the greatest need for DSI to engage?
— Our goal is to address challenges that currently aren’t being tackled by other actors in the digital ecosystem and for which we have the required resources, knowledge and expertise among our members.
All activities of the organisation will focus on creating value for society as a whole, and by that I’m referring to four key areas that will be in the focus of the DSI in the period ahead.
The first is the startup ecosystem, where we will support startups in significantly increasing their presence in developed markets.
The second is informal education, where we will develop programmes to familiarise future generations and professionals with the use of advanced technologies.
The third area is entrepreneurship development, with the aim of increasing the number of experienced startup founders through mentorship and support programmes.
The fourth area is internationalisation through establishment of strong international connections and support for global growth of our companies.
| CHALLENGES Our challenge lies in increasing the global presence of our innovative solutions and supporting founders in developing startups with global ambitions | SHORTFALL Serbia has the potential to make a significant leap towards Economy 5.0, but we need to build a greater knowledge base about digital transformation | COMPARISON Serbia lags behind in terms of the number of unicorns, innovation commercialisation and investments in startups, but is the Western Balkans’ most developed startup ecosystem |
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Photo: Branislav Nenin
