Bosnia and Herzegovina’s startup ecosystem is growing up, not just growing

To better understand how all of this looks, I spent several days in Sarajevo last October, moving between meetings, side conversations, and local events tied to Slush’D and BAS (Business Angels Summit). I didn’t arrive with a fixed agenda. Instead, I listened and observed, speaking with founders, engineers, investors, and organizers who are trying to build something meaningful in a challenging environment.

And much of what I learned didn’t come from stages or keynotes, but from informal conversations. Over coffee and local food, during walks through the city, and beer in the evening, we talked openly about what works, what doesn’t, and why people still choose to stay and build here. And it helped me understand local conditions better.

Isolated talent that has the potential to connect the ecosystem

For years, BiH’s strength lay in engineering and outsourcing - developers working for foreign clients and companies delivering services to European and even global markets. One of the anecdotes that I heard was that during one closed-door dinner between the events, a traditional IT director pointed at a young Bosnian engineer and said, “This is the guy we’ve been trying to build internally.”

Bojan Lazić, one of the initiators of bringing Slush to BiH, responded immediately:

You can’t build that person inside a single company. He is a product of an ecosystem, of the environment he grew up in.

That conversation captured a long-standing dynamic I’ve seen across the region. BiH always had IT skill, but what it lacked, as others in the region also do, was the evolution from outsourcing to entrepreneurship, from execution for others to creation for ourselves.

“For many years, we have developed a strong engineering culture here. What didn’t happen was the transition from pure engineering to building our own products. For example, around 270 people from BiH work directly for Apple. Many successful global startups are founded by ex-Apple employees, whether they are engineers, product people, business developers, or designers. But how many times have we seen someone from Bosnia and Herzegovina who currently works for Apple through one of the large IT companies locally, leave Apple and start a company based on that experience - identifying gaps, building something new, and maybe even getting acquired later? It rarely happens,” Lazić told me during a candid conversation.

On paper, the ecosystem appears to be moving. Recent ecosystem-mapping data shows that BiH’s startup ecosystem grew by about 27.8 percent in 2025, ranking it 91st globally, with over $3.8 million in funding recorded. Sarajevo alone saw a 25.4 percent rise, with nearly $1.9 million raised.

But as several people told me during my stay, the numbers don’t tell the full story. The country had engineers, designers, and programmers long before it had startups. What was missing until recently was the shared mindset that risk might actually be worth taking.

Events, momentum, and continuity

Malcolm Duerod, professor of entrepreneurial studies at Sarajevo-based International Burch University, has lived in the country for more than a decade and has seen the ecosystem grow and mature firsthand. We spoke over coffee, away from the conference noise.

Duerod told me:

In 2012 there was no awareness of entrepreneurship; today there is huge awareness. And students are finally seeing how talent becomes powerful only when paired with risk capital, community and mentorship.

Early growth metrics support that shift. Local incubators and acceleration programs are expanding. In the first half of 2025, the top 20 startups supported by ecosystem actors backed by Swiss EP created 361 jobs - up from 332 the year before. By global standards, these numbers are modest. In a country where youth unemployment and brain drain define social reality, they matter.

Lazić pointed to another moment that, for him, confirmed the change in mindset. “Take the Google AI Hackathon for example. For the first time, we had 156 teams apply. Hundreds of people were hacking all day. The Google representatives were impressed - everyone deployed their apps, used the latest technologies, pitched live on stage for the first time, without fear. So yes, we have the talent. We just need leadership. Someone to show the way. We grew up in a society where we were told what we ‘can’t’ do. We need to flip that. This is true for the whole Balkans. Young people need to hear ‘you can’.”

Structural barriers that still shape outcomes

Despite the momentum, major barriers remain. Duerod was direct about them. The ecosystem is fragmented, regulation outdated, and the standard “d.o.o.” legal structure inflexible when it comes to equity sharing or pivoting. “If someone tries and fails, they should be able to close in a month and try again,” he said.

Instead, founders face months of legal friction, expensive notary fees, and uncertainty for foreign capital. Listening to this during my stay, it became clear why so many companies incorporate in Estonia or Delaware. When companies leave on paper, capital follows.

Without corporate, legislative, and regulatory reform, BiH’s ecosystem will likely continue to grow, but its roots will remain shallow.

“Right now many student companies are sole-owned because it is the only efficient structure locally. But that’s not scalable. And when companies register abroad, so does the capital - and the tax revenue. The government should be incentivized to fix this. If not, talent and capital will continue to leak out, and the country will be hollowed out,” Duerod warned.

Why Bosnia matters for the entire region

BiH’s emerging model through connecting local talent, diaspora entrepreneurs, global investors, and institutions also offers a possible roadmap for the wider region. This is something that can start with community-building, and it doesn’t have to end there. “We realised that one event per year is not enough. As of tomorrow, we start preparing for the next Slush’D, and for everything in between, because continuity is what builds an ecosystem,” Lazić told me.

The success of companies like Rolla, now one of the most financed Bosnian startups, reinforces a belief I heard repeatedly in Sarajevo: startup life is not only possible here - it is also now becoming more and more desirable.

Duerod framed the issue in broader terms:

The economy unites people - deals happen across borders and across groups. Take Bingo: it didn’t stay just in the Federation. It grew from nothing in Tuzla to the biggest supermarket chain in the whole country. That’s the mentality we should pass to young people - that ideas can scale across borders and identities.

This story extends beyond BiH. A few years ago, I attended the WeAreDevelopers World Congress in Berlin, only later realizing that the team behind it had roots in BiH. I met its CEO, Sead Ahmetović, born in the small northern town of Odžak and now based in Vienna.

At Slush’D, Ahmetović spoke about the power of developer communities to shape entire industries - and about the cultural role of the diaspora in particular.

“When we gather, we are from all over the world. We bring insights from different cultures, ecosystems and systems. And when you put all of that in one pot, interesting things happen. WeAreDevelopers has been providing a platform for communities all over the world to thrive - and in our case it’s also giving us the opportunity to pay back a bit to our own homes.”

What I realized after several days spent in Sarajevo is that these elements point to a new kind of ambition forming in BiH - It’s not a guaranteed success story, and it’s not free of structural risks. But it is a credible path forward: an ecosystem that can gradually grow on its own terms, using its people, its diaspora, and its hard-earned experience as foundations. And I like this approach because it feels grounded rather than performative.

In that sense the real test will not be whether BiH produces a breakout unicorn, but whether five or ten years from now this ecosystem is still here, producing companies, and giving its most capable people a reason to stay, return, or remain connected.

The story was written by Bojan Stojkovski.