The 10 leading Croatian companies selected in a public tender organized by Croatian Ministry for Entrepreneurship & Craft and Agency for SMEs (HAMAG-BICRO) - Agrivi, Amodo, Mobendo, Efectus Media, Reflecta Intelligent Systems, Visiobike, Supranet, Aplikata, Pinecon & Icat - visited London from the 19th to the 22nd of May, 2015 accompanied by Minister of Entrepreneurship & Craft Mr Gordan Maras, the delegation of HAMAG-BICRO and Zagreb Development Agency (RAZA). The visit was initiated and organizationally supported by Croatian Embassy in London in cooperation with HAMAG BICRO and Bloomberg London.
The flagship of the visit was the pitching event at the Bloomberg’s headquarter in the City of London the 21st of May – ‘Investors meet Innovations". During the presentation, all companies have showed the very high quality of their innovative projects. This opinion has also been shared by chief pitching coordinator Mr Christopher Lowe who said that Croatia had many excellent engineers with good ideas. Among potential investors were the representatives of the US Investment Bank Jefferies, British Rockspring fund, UK Trade & Investment and many others.
During the stay, the delegation visited the Greenwich Peninsula, the eastern part of London known as the centre of digital entrepreneurship and innovation in the UK. They met the representatives of the accelerator 6 Mitre Passage (Digital Enterprise Greenwich dealing with the development of urban and digital applications for "smart cities"; some companies in the accelerator), the representatives of the leading British Universities (Ravensbourne and its Incubator for graduates with business ideas; the University of Greenwich as an example of the close cooperation between an academic community and industry). Further, the delegation visited one of the UK leading independent audit company Blick Rothenberg LLP, the venture capital funds Playfair and MMC Capital Venture and finally, The London Stock Exchange.
The delegation also visited Croatian Embassy in London were the Ambassador Dr Ivan Grdešic welcomed all the guest and wished them success on foreign markets. The guest speaker was Ms. Camilla Dolan, portofolio manager of MMC Ventures who held a very insightful presentation. The visit proved to have been very beneficial to the Croatian companies. They had the opportunity directly meeting their potential business partners and investors on the one hand. And on the other, they were able to hear about the ways the academic community and industry in the UK cooperate as to educate market-oriented students and talents for "smart cities" of the 21st century. The both sides have agreed this kind of cooperation should become traditional one.
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