Serbian startup zelenoo.com gets EUR 50,000 from the Austrian Development Agency

(Photo: Sashkin/shutterstock.com)

The first company to receive these grants is Organik Nova for its its portal zelenoo.com, which connects manufacturers with consumers.

The company has received EUR 50,000 for the website from the APA to expand its business. This is the only Serbian startup to place among the top 15 most successful companies in the social entrepreneurship competition in Austria, which was also entered by other Western Balkan companies, African, Asian and Latin American companies.

- Our idea was to merge mobile technologies with agricultural production, that is, organic food and the existing food distribution chain with the demands of the economy of the 21st century – explained Nikica Marinkovic, conceptual designer and one of the site’s owners.

- In Austria, I also met my investor, who invested EUR 20,000 of startup capital in my business – explains Marinkovic.

Organic food producers are opening their profiles at zelenoo.com with their current offers. In order for their profiles to be visible to consumers on the web, they are first checked by agricultural engineers who started the entire project.

During their visitations to a farm or a workshop, they make sure, through talking to owners, that they are really producers, and not dealers or merchants.

It is only when the producers fulfill all the criteria for a correct and credible cooperation with the site that their profiles become visible to the buyers browsing the site and the online food sale can begin.