Balkan Business Brief

Startup spotlight on WithMe – Find your ideal roommate

WithMe is an inspiring story that tells about young people's teamwork, enthusiasm and commitment can bring an idea to life, gradually turning it into a sustainable business. WithMe is a platform that shortens the time in finding the ideal roommate and allows you to share housing or travel expenses with them. The idea came from three young entrepreuners - Stefan Vukmanovic , Edina Osmanovic and Ivana ?ori? , and their startup adventure begins like this.

Faced with the same problem of not being able to find a roommate while studying abroad or a person to travel with, three young people started brainstorming potential solutions and came up with the idea of creating a platform for finding roommates. Thus the creation of Withme, the young team applied to Sparks.me, where with mentoring support they shaped their business idea and won first place with a prize of 5,000 euros. With the funding and further mentoring support, WithMe has gone from an idea to a real roommate platform that you can find today at withmeglobal.com. Creating a profile on the platform is simple, and by entering your location, your budget on a monthly basis and other optional features, the app's algorithm will offer you potential roommates that match your requirements.

At GenUnlimited Ventures, they won first place and received additional mentoring and financial support in the amount of 2,000 euros. At the final competition, Sparks.me they also won 20,000 euros in services from companies in Croatia, and later support from Microsoft in the amount of 150,000 dollars in software services. What WithMe needs at this moment are additional investments and seed funding that would ensure faster expansion on the territory of the Western Balkans and Europe.

WithMe solves the problems of young people all over the world, It helps encourage mobility, further education, acquaintances and to solve the search for a roommate at a time when the market is extremely volatile and expensive. If you are also looking for a person with whom you want to share expenses and you want to quickly find your ideal roommate, then run to withmeglobal.com.?Continue to follow their journey? WithmeGlobal

Balkan gets new Amazon

Do you love shopping online and getting your order in just a few days?

Now citizens of Balkan countries can. Serbian' ecommerce platform Anana, that is property of Delta Holding, keeps expanding in the ?Balkan region rapidly.?The Ananas ecommerce platform is described as the new regional Amazon. For now, Ananas is the most serious domestic platform for e-commerce, and has more than 150. 000 available products from more than 200 sellers. Last month the company acquired two North Macedonian e-commerce platforms – Grouper.mk i Paopao.mk. ?The company announced that they will expand in other Balkan countries next year. During the next period they intend to allow cross border trade for Serbian sellers and Serbian customers who will be able to buy easily products from other countries, alongside this platform they will offer some new services.

Better connected Balkans

How can the Western Balkan Countries become better connected to EU member countries?

The Council for Regional Cooperation continues to contribute to strengthening relations between the countries of the Western Balkans, but at the same time works to strengthen their relations with the European Union. A new step that was made recently is reducing roaming prices between the European Union and the countries of the Western Balkans from 2023, and later its complete abolition. This will bring many benefits for all companies and citizens of the Balkans and EU like the reduction of operating costs, encourage business outside the home borders and strengthen the tourism offer in the Western Balkans region.