Zagreb, April 15, 2025 – On Tuesday evening, BIRD Incubator hosted its highly anticipated Demo Day, the final event of its six-month Incubation Program. Seven startup teams pitched their business ideas in front of a jury, partners, investors, and an enthusiastic audience. The winner of the evening was Pickid – a platform for safe child transportation – who took home the top prize of €5,000.
“The program has been a journey of clear growth for us – in the first phase we received valuable guidance and insights from mentors, and in the second we started putting that knowledge into practice,” said Amer Nakić, co-founder of Pickid. “That’s when we made the biggest leap – turning our idea into something tangible and validating it on the market. Winning tells us we’re heading in the right direction. This isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning – an extra motivation to keep building what we believe in. We’re truly grateful for all the support we received through the incubator, and happy to know that we’ll always have such a strong and capable group of people like the BIRD Incubator team in our corner.”
The second prize of €3,000 went to Flyvbird, a startup using artificial intelligence to optimize regional air travel, while LiveSync MD secured third place and €2,000 with its AI-powered tool for transcribing medical conversations to help doctors stay focused on their patients.
The winning Pickid team – Amer Nakić, Karlo Premužak, Matej Vukić, and Lovre Mitrović – accepted their award in front of a crowd of over 80 guests, including mentors, alumni, partners, and members of the local startup community.
“The greatest value of programs like this is that teams get to experience firsthand what building a startup really looks like – through hands-on workshops and additional activities,” said Sven Harjaček, jury president and Business Development Manager at BIRD Incubator. “We’re showing them that their ideas can become scalable products with global potential.”
This year’s jury featured Mihael Minđek (GNK Dinamo Zagreb), Dora Zane (Voilà), Roberto Gobo (Valamar Riviera), Vedran Hrgović (Telemach Hrvatska), and Sven Harjaček (BIRD Incubator).
“Programs like this build a strong foundation for a healthy local innovation ecosystem by giving startups what they need most – knowledge, support, and mentorship, as well as the opportunity to test their ideas in the real world,” said Mihael Minđek, First Team Scout at GNK Dinamo Zagreb. “Dinamo joined BIRD Incubator as a partner because we believe true innovation comes from collaboration and real-world challenges. In sports, we know how important it is to have someone believe in you from the beginning – that’s why it matters to be part of this community. Together, we’re investing in the future.”
In addition to the competing teams, the event also featured presentations from two alumni startups – Ultrax AI and TensorPix – sharing their continued growth and impact.
The evening wrapped up with the award ceremony and informal networking over food and drinks, marking the symbolic close of BIRD Incubator’s 2024/25 Incubation Program. Over the past six months, the program provided selected startups with mentorship, hands-on workshops, and strategic support to help them develop their ideas into commercially viable products.
BIRD Incubator’s Incubation Program runs annually from October to April, supporting early-stage tech startups. Coming up next is the Pre-Incubation Program, kicking off in May, designed for teams with promising business ideas. The program lasts seven weeks, and applications for the next cohort are now open.
