How many unicorns? Zero. How many world-class AI startups? Zero. OK, how many VC-funded startups going global? Still zero.
Let’s focus elsewhere; Albania doesn’t have much to offer.
Well.. not quite. The Albania’s startup ecosystem is getting ready to take on the big guys of Europe very soon. Let’s say, it’s just gotten a late wake-up call but is already charting its way forward. So, when I got an invitation from Patrik Fetahaj to visit and take part in the ICT Awards ceremony in late May this year, I decided to check out the country first-hand and see how it’s building its future. And, Patrik is one of those building the future for Albania.
Albania’s startup ecosystem is waking up with fresh talent
Patrik Fetahaj works for GIZ Albania and is the Program Advisor of EU4Innovation, the project leading the charge in creating Albania’s innovation and startup ecosystem. After finishing his studies at Baruch College in the US 10 years back, Patrik headed straight back to Kosovo and Albania to contribute to the region’s economy. He has been on the job of building Albania’s startup ecosystem for more than five years now. He was fighting a lonely battle for a long time, but, increasingly, he has more and more company now.
Especially in Kushtrim Shala – a fellow Kosovan, who has just executed the annual Albanian ICT Awards ceremony flawlessly for the 12th time in May this year. At the event two things stood out for me:
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- First of all: how young most innovator-awardees this year were. Many of them are still in school, but putting in their collective brainpower to develop highly technologically advanced solutions, tackling problems that an emerging country presents.
- Secondly, how Albanians see themselves not as a country but a nation. ICT Awards celebrate Albanian innovation – be it from Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, or the worldwide diaspora. If you are Albanian, you are “one of us”. And, that means, a huge pool of talent ready and motivated to work for the betterment of the South Balkans.
But, Kushtrim isn’t only known for the ICT Awards. He also runs the globally well-connected Uplift Albania Accelerator Program, which graduates more than 10 startups each year. More remarkably, he runs the ICTS Lab, an innovation non-profit currently in its sixth year of operation. The non-profit runs coding schools for hundreds of children as young as nine or 10 and encourages them to build tech solutions for the real world. Some of them go on to win awards at the ICT Awards Gala ceremony getting recognition for their work at a national and regional level!
Returning experts driving the changes
And, then, there is an increasingly large number of returnee diaspora that is bringing global ideas and best practices to Albania and using them to build the next generation of Albanian startups.
Ervin Kalemi was one of the early returnees. After seven years in US, he returned to Tirana in 2015, bootstrapped Publer, a social media platform that now boasts more than 350,000 social media managers, marketing agencies, and global brands, mostly in the US, and is profitable by a wide margin.
Arber Kadia, a graduate of Eton College and Bristol University returned to Albania and set up Patoko two years back. A fully bootstrapped super-app – i.e., WeChat, Careem, Grab and Yandex – all rolled into one, it has already acquired 100,000 users in the country, has managed to break even in such a short time and is ready to expand to neighboring countries.
Daniel Mija, who grew up in Reading (UK) for most of his life, followed in Arber’s footsteps, came back to his homeland two years ago, and is launching Rumio, a platform that allows Albanians and tourists to book wellness services. Soon, some of these startups will join the ranks of the already very successful Baboon, a (food) delivery app, and Gjirafa.com which is building the internet economy of Albania and after having raised US$ 10M is on its way to expanding into all of the Balkans.
Trail-blazing the path to success for others
When I see taxi, delivery, and service-booking apps taking the country by storm, I see a lot of parallels between current-day Albania and the early days of the startup ecosystem in Poland, Colombia, and even Indonesia. These were the breakaway startups that trail-blazed the entrepreneurial ecosystems. Leading the way to all these countries developing more sophisticated startups. And, this is what I foresee for Albania.
With a young, motivated population of the “Albanian Nation” that is picking up innovation at a very early age, with ecosystem players like Patrik and Kushtrim who have dedicated their entire lives to the startup & innovation cause and with returnee diaspora like Ervin, Arber and Daniel putting in their global brains into building their country, I see an inflection point coming very soon for our Southern Balkan neighbour!
