Just 15 months ago, in April 2025, many expressed surprise when a startup founded by Novi Sad natives Dušan Komar and Laslo Horvat alongside their German colleague Dennis Weinbender achieved a valuation of $230 million after just one year in business. Earlier this week, it was officially confirmed that Ominimo has become Serbia’s first “unicorn”, with its valuation soaring to $1.6 billion (around €1.4 billion).
When asked what lies behind such dizzying business success – unprecedented in this region – Dušan Komar, founder and CEO of Ominimo, highlighted two key factors in his first media interview following the company’s official announcement to Radar.
“The first is technology. We developed our own proprietary platform based on artificial intelligence, which allows us to assess risk far more accurately than traditional insurers. As a result, we can offer lower prices to safer drivers while remaining profitable. The second reason is the people. We managed to assemble top mathematicians, statisticians, and software engineers – smart, curious, and hardworking individuals who are the fundamental reason for this success,” Komar points out.
He stresses that it is no coincidence the company he leads has for years sponsored the Serbian team at the International Mathematical Olympiad, which won six medals in Shanghai again this year. The end result is that Ominimo reached its first 500,000 users in just over a year, whereas European and American competitors required anywhere between five and ten years to achieve the same, he says.
“However, what I believe is even more important is that we achieved all this as a profitable company. Many startups buy growth by operating at a loss for years, funded by investor cash. In insurance, that simply doesn’t work. If you misjudge risk, you run out of capital very quickly. It was precisely this combination – explosive growth paired with strong profitability – that drove the company’s valuation up from around €200 million to €1.4 billion in little over a year,” Komar explains.
How would you explain to someone outside the business world how a relatively young company, fairly unknown domestically, is worth far more on the market than household names widely perceived as successful? How did Ominimo become the most valuable insurance company in the former Yugoslavia and one of the most valuable in Serbia?
I think the answer is quite simple – investors invest in the future, not the past. The past matters to them, but only as an indicator of what they believe the company can deliver in the future. I recall mentioning a comparison between Google and Volkswagen (VW) during our previous interview for Radar. Back then, VW was worth $54 billion and Google was worth $1,860 billion, even though their revenues at the time were identical. The reason was simple – investors expected Google to grow much faster and be significantly more profitable. Today, a year and three months later, VW’s valuation has dropped to $39 billion, while Google’s has risen to $3,910 billion.
In the time between our two interviews, Google went from being worth 34 times more than VW to 100 times more. That is a prime example of how much the AI era has shifted investor thinking. Or take Anthropic: despite being only five years old, it is already worth roughly 25 times more than VW. That doesn’t mean VW is a bad company. On the contrary! It simply shows that today, a company’s value is measured neither by its history nor by its number of factories, office buildings, or employees, but by expectations of how much value it will generate in the future. Growth speed and potential have become more critical than ever.
What does it mean to you that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has become one of your partners? Is it purely financial support, or does the partnership bring something more?
The EBRD’s role is equally significant in both financial and strategic terms. The insurance industry differs from most others in that it is simultaneously highly regulated and capital-intensive. In such an environment, international financial institutions play a vital role. The EBRD manages over $100 billion in assets, holds the highest possible credit rating (AAA), and is an international financial institution owned by 77 countries, with the US Government as its largest single shareholder. It is one of the most prestigious and selective institutional investors in the world, enjoying an exceptional reputation in financial and regulatory circles across Europe.
What is equally important to us is that the EBRD has a very long investment horizon. This aligns perfectly with our vision for company development. We aren’t building Ominimo to sell it in two or three years; we are building it so that, in the decades to come, it becomes the world’s largest risk assessment technology platform – so that we too might surpass the aforementioned VW in market value.
Prior to the EBRD partnership, Zurich Insurance Group – Europe’s second-largest insurer – became a minority shareholder in Ominimo last year. What did you gain from that, and did you and your partners have to relinquish anything as owners in return?
Insurance is, above all, an industry built on trust. When your minority shareholder and strategic partner is Europe’s second-largest insurance group, backed by a legacy of over 150 years, it sends a powerful message to clients, business partners, and regulators. Zurich Insurance Group is also the best-capitalised insurance group in Europe, and to date, without exception, they have provided all the capital required to grow our joint portfolio. We are extremely pleased with the partnership. We maintain excellent relations at the highest level, and in the coming months, we will enter two new markets together – Belgium and Romania.
When selecting strategic partners or investors, our absolute priority is preserving company sovereignty and complete autonomy over strategic and operational decisions. That is precisely why negotiations with both Zurich Insurance Group and the EBRD took months. We will always prefer to give up a percentage of equity rather than the right to make key decisions about the company’s future. The freedom to build Ominimo in the way we believe is right holds greater value for us than any single investment. I am confident we have found partners who share that philosophy and want to help us build a global company rather than run it for us.
In spring 2025, you told Radar that many had claimed your company would never be profitable and wouldn’t last long. What are they saying now that Ominimo, with 2025 revenues exceeding $350 million, is the fastest-growing insurtech company in the world?
When attempting to build a globally relevant company, encountering skepticism is entirely normal. If everyone had believed in your idea from the start, someone would likely have executed it before you. People like to think of themselves as unconventional, but few are willing to pay the price. And that price involves swimming upstream daily, dealing with criticism, unwanted advice, and people listing ten reasons why you will fail. It is psychologically demanding. Peter Thiel wrote about this in Zero to One, which is rightfully considered a bible of the startup world.
It is a nice feeling when the sceptics are proven wrong, but I think it is even more important not to base your motivation on needing to prove anything to anyone. If you are driven by a need for external validation, a desire to act out of spite, or a wish to silence critics, that isn’t a healthy or sustainable long-term motivation. I am driven by something else entirely – the fact that we managed to bring together a team of incredibly smart, hardworking, and curious people, and that every day we tackle extremely complex problems together. That is where I find the greatest satisfaction; the results we see today are simply a byproduct of that approach.
Your organizational setup is also quite non-traditional: Ominimo Holding is headquartered in Cyprus, your initial market was Hungary, and your R&D centre is in Novi Sad. Is it fair to call Ominimo the first Serbian “unicorn”, or is it perhaps more of a Cypriot or Hungarian company? Or do borders simply not exist for your business?
They say it’s a good sign when people start claiming you as their own. Recently, I’ve read articles presenting Ominimo as a Cypriot, Hungarian, Dutch, and even Polish company. Clearly, we’re doing something right. If I’m not mistaken, Romania’s UiPath is now formally headquartered in Delaware, and Croatia’s Infobip in the Cayman Islands, yet everyone rightly views them as Romanian and Croatian companies, respectively. As for Ominimo, two of the three founders are from Serbia, over two-thirds of our workforce is based in Serbia, and the vast majority of the technology we build originates in Serbia…
At the same time, from day one, we wanted to build a global enterprise, which is why we established the holding company in Cyprus – an EU member state whose legal system is largely based on English common law. Hungary was our first market and a stepping stone to entering the broader European market. Soon, we will operate in over ten EU markets, the US market, and likely several Asian markets too. If you want to build one of the world’s largest tech companies in your sector, you simply cannot think like a local business. You must be global from day one. So, what is Ominimo? In my view, it is a global company with Serbian roots.
You co-founded Ominimo in 2024 with Laslo Horvat, a colleague from Serbia, and Denis Weinbender from Germany. On the surface, a rather diverse trio – what was the glue that brought you together into such a cohesive team? And is it clear who does what?
Denis and I met at McKinsey, where we worked together for six years. Laslo attended the same high school as me, Svetozar Marković Grammar School in Novi Sad, though we actually met later through mutual friends from the Faculty of Sciences. Today, I believe our roles are divided almost perfectly. Laslo leads the development of our tech platform and is, without a doubt, the most brilliant software engineer I have ever met – what Silicon Valley calls a 10x developer. Denis is a mathematical genius; I don’t think he has an equal when it comes to building risk assessment models in insurance.
My job is to define company strategy, assist with prioritisation, build relationships with investors, regulators, and partners, and ensure Ominimo functions as a unified organisation. It is especially important to me that we foster a meritocratic culture where the best ideas win rather than internal politics – where office politics and self-promotion are weeded out, and where friction among team members, including between us three founders, is kept to an absolute minimum. That requires a great deal of emotional maturity from everyone at Ominimo and a willingness to leave egos at the door. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whose idea it was, only that it’s the best one. What pleases me most is that the best ideas very often come from our youngest colleagues. To my mind, that is the best proof that such a culture truly works.
The valuation of your startup, launched in 2024, crossed the one-billion-euro mark precisely while Serbia was facing a major societal crisis. Does this suggest that for a sound business model, no obstacle is insurmountable, or…?
No company gets to choose the macro environment in which it operates. If you wait for ideal conditions – an absence of economic crises, political tensions, wars, or pandemics – you will never build anything great. That doesn’t mean a good business model faces no hurdles; on the contrary, entrepreneurship is daily problem-solving. The difference is that a good team and a solid organisation don’t waste energy complaining about obstacles; they find ways to overcome them. What concerns me far more than any single crisis, however, is how much the talent of young people in Serbia remains underutilised.
When we decided to support the Mathematical Society of Serbia and fund the preparation and travel of our national team to the International Mathematical Olympiad, I genuinely expected us to be one of dozens of companies doing so. It turned out we were the only one. That truly surprised me. The world’s top companies fight ruthlessly for talent like this, whereas locally it often goes unrecognized or underused, leading many of these young people to achieve their greatest successes abroad. I would like to see that change. I am convinced that investing in such individuals is one of the best investments possible.
You recently stated that once a country produces its first unicorn, international venture capital funds view it differently, boosting the odds for new major startups to emerge. Do you believe Serbia could see another unicorn soon? Do you have anyone specific in mind?
I absolutely believe so – not just one, but many more. Frankly, I already know several Serbian companies today that have the potential to reach that level in the coming years, though I wouldn’t want to single out specific names. In conversations with some of the world’s most prominent investment funds, I have witnessed firsthand how perception shifted regarding Scandinavia – especially Sweden – following the rise of companies like Spotify, Klarna, and more recently, Lovable.
Simply put, when globally successful companies repeatedly emerge from a country, investors start believing it’s a pattern rather than a fluke. Investing, after all, is a bet on the future, and expectations are built on what has been observed in the past. When a country has zero unicorns, many question whether it’s even achievable. Once it gets its first, it is no longer theoretical; it’s a fact. And mathematically speaking, one unicorn is infinitely more than zero. I believe this shift in perception will open doors for many other Serbian companies coming up behind us.
As co-owner of a company using AI for insurance risk assessment, do you worry that massive investments in AI – following the rapid valuation surges of companies like Nvidia or Musk’s SpaceX – could lead to a financial “bubble” bursting, akin to the late-1990s dot-com crash?
I think two separate issues are often conflated here. The first is whether artificial intelligence is a passing fad or a genuine technological revolution. I have no doubt whatsoever that it is a revolution that will transform virtually every industry, likely more profoundly than the internet did. The second question is whether every company carrying an “AI” label today is truly worth its current valuation. On that point, I am far more cautious. It is entirely possible that certain companies are overvalued today and will see significant valuation drops at some point. That happened during the dot-com era as well. But regardless of the dot-com bubble, the internet ultimately won out. The bubble didn’t prove the internet wasn’t a revolution; it proved that not every company promising a revolution was capable of delivering it. I believe the same will happen with AI.
You frequently emphasize that most of your roughly 100-strong team consists of young Serbian specialists working in Ominimo’s development hubs in Novi Sad and Belgrade. How do you recruit new talent?
By far, our best results have come from direct collaboration with Serbian universities. PMF, FTN, MATF, RAF, and ETF are our most vital partners today when it comes to sourcing new talent. Earlier this year, alongside MATF, we organised the inaugural Ominimo Data Science Hackathon for final-year students and extended 30 job offers to participants. We have launched scholarship programmes for top students, support the Mathematical Society of Serbia, and intend to make substantial equipment donations to assist IT procurement at our major faculties.
We don’t hire people for what they know today, but for their potential, intelligence, and curiosity. Technologies change every few years, and any tech skill can be learned. Intelligence, mindset, and character – those cannot be taught. Nearly everyone we hire comes directly from university without prior work experience, and the average age of our team today is around 25. Finally, following the closure of our Series B round, we set aside over €50 million for an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) to distribute options among our workforce. We want the people building Ominimo alongside us to be co-owners, not just employees.
A few days ago, reports indicated that demand for AI specialists in Serbia grew by over 80% compared to last year, while IT job postings overall fell by 16%. What does that tell you, especially considering local authorities regularly boast about double-digit growth in ICT service exports?
First, I would ask what an “AI specialist” even means today. This wave of generative AI is so new that there simply aren’t people with ten years of experience in the field. In most cases, we are talking about software developers who were curious enough to adapt. That brings me back to what I consider paramount – intelligence, curiosity, and a drive to keep learning. At Ominimo, for example, most of our developers now write over 90% of their code using Claude rather than writing it manually as they did just a few years ago. They achieved this by experimenting with the tool and quickly adopting a new workflow. Any capable software engineer willing to learn can rapidly become what is currently termed an AI expert. Paradoxically, AI hasn’t raised the barrier to entry for programming – it has lowered it. More and more software is created today through natural language conversations with AI models rather than writing rigid programming syntax.
Serbia stands at a major crossroads. Regardless of future election outcomes, what do you view as the single biggest economic issue right now, and what solution would you propose if it were up to you?
Serbia possesses a resource far more valuable than any natural wealth: exceptionally talented and technically educated young people. What we lacked for a long time, however, was the confidence to dream big enough. For generations, we taught young people to choose a safe job rather than build great companies. Even today, when we want to describe a child as good, we say they are “obedient”. I think we need a bit more disobedience, in the best sense of the word – the courage to strive for what seems impossible to others, to swim upstream when we believe something is right, and to persevere even when the majority tries to convince us it’s futile.
In my last interview with Radar, I mentioned Novak Djokovic. When he started training, he didn’t dream of being the best in Belgrade or Serbia. He wanted to be the best in the world – and not just the best, but the greatest of all time. I believe that is the mindset we need. I often hear that young people should be “given a chance”. Frankly, I dislike that phrasing. Nobody hands you the most valuable things in life; you have to create and seize them yourself. Someone can give you a push, open a door, or believe in you more than you believe in yourself at that moment, but ultimately you have to walk through that door on your own.
If it were up to me, I would propose establishing a mega-fund worth several billion euros rather than a few tens of millions, managed by one of the world’s leading venture capital funds – similar to the model developed by the EU with the EQT fund. Its mandate would be to identify the most talented young people, provide them with seed capital, and help them build companies with global ambitions from day one. I am utterly convinced that such an investment would yield a far higher long-term return for Serbia than almost any other development policy.
(Radar, 30.07.2026)
https://radar.nova.rs/ekonomija/dusan-komar-osnivac-prvog-srpskog-jednoroga/