Ominimo Becomes Serbia's First Unicorn at $1.6 Billion

The market valuation of insurance technology startup Ominimo stands at 1.6 billion dollars following a closed Series B round, the first time a company founded in Serbia has crossed the billion dollar threshold. The investment arm of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development took part in the round, an institution that rarely enters early stage venture capital in the Western Balkans.

Ominimo was founded in 2024 by Dusan Komar and Laslo Horvat of Serbia together with Denis Weinbender of Germany. In its Series A round, closed in April 2025, the company was valued at 230 million dollars. In little more than twelve months the valuation multiplied almost seven times, a pace the Serbian technology scene has not recorded before, either on paper or in investor books.

How did a startup increase sevenfold in two years?

Ominimo builds next generation insurance products that rely on artificial intelligence, advanced mathematical models and large scale data analysis. The work sits in risk assessment and policy pricing, the part of the business where traditional insurers still operate on slower actuarial cycles. The company is active in four European markets and has signed up close to one million customers in under two years.

What separates this round from the standard fast growth story is the relationship between revenue and cost. Annual revenue exceeds 350 million dollars and the company says it has been profitable since inception. Most European startups at this stage burn investor capital to buy growth, which leaves the valuation resting on projections rather than on premiums actually collected. Ominimo entered the round with existing cash flow, which lowers the risk discount investors apply.

The shape of the team explains the other half of the equation. The company employs just over one hundred people, two thirds of them data scientists and software engineers, with an average age of 25. Its development centres are concentrated in Novi Sad and Belgrade, cities where the cost of engineering work remains markedly lower than in Vienna, Munich or Amsterdam at a comparable level of qualification.

What unicorn status means for the Serbian technology scene

The valuation makes Ominimo the most valuable insurance company in the former Yugoslavia, achieved in two years of trading, ahead of houses that have been selling policies for decades. The comparison is not entirely like for like, since an investor valuation and an insurer’s balance sheet value are measured with different instruments, but the signal to the market is unambiguous.

The second consequence matters more for the local ecosystem. EBRD participation in a Series B round changes the perceived risk for funds that until now have not considered Serbia a location for investments above one hundred million dollars. When a development bank takes equity, other investors gain a reference that is difficult to dismiss, and the next Serbian companies enter negotiations from a stronger starting position. Ominimo says it plans to enter six additional European Union markets and the United States within a year.

One question tends to get skipped in announcements of this kind: the 1.6 billion dollar figure is the price paid by investors in a private round, not a price confirmed by the market. The real test arrives with the next round, a listing or a sale, and with the answer to how many of the ten promised markets are actually open by the middle of 2027.

Does this look to you like the start of a serious wave of Serbian technology companies, or an isolated case?