Chipolo: the power to be found

Some of us hardly ever misplace things. Others, however, seem to spend a significant proportion of their time on this earth looking for things like their house keys, their wallet, the car keys… Enter Chipolo to save you time and energy. Chipolo specialises in colourful item finders and a companion app. Founded in 2013, the company grew from a group of friends into a multinational business whose mission is “to simplify your life by helping you keep track of your belongings.”

As CEO Primož Zelenšek explains, the company started back in 2012 with seven friends who wanted to develop a solution for an everyday problem: “We were quite experienced in making mobile app but started thinking of hardware as well. We made a list of ideas and one was a key-finder. One of the guys was always late because he kept losing things…” Primoz says. The idea was a no-brainer, and the company started to take shape, buoyed also by the emergence of Bluetooth 4.0 chip technology.

A turning point in the company’s fortunes came when they launched a campaign on Kickstarter back in 2013: “It was one of the best decisions we made, raising 300k in less than a month. Funnily enough, as Slovenians, we couldn’t apply to the Kickstarter platform, so we asked an American we met to set it up for us. If you think about it, he could have disappeared with the funds, but I guess we ran into a really nice guy,” Primoz explains, helping restore faith in mankind. “After that, many distributors came flooding in and we really took off.” That growth wasn’t without its challenges though. “We needed cashflow to finance that growth, but banks only offered limited credit lines, so we started looking for investors,” Primoz explains. That search led them to the Slovene Enterprise Fund, who, backed by the EIF, made an important equity investment in the company. “It helped us build our stocks and support our growth. Then in 2023, we bought back the shares,” describing perfectly how EU financial instruments can help European businesses and return investments as well.

Today the company sells products to both businesses and consumers. Sometimes they are used as gifts and in other cases, they can be integrated into larger products, working with a range of partner companies. Apart from the design of the product, Chipolo also actually produces everything in Slovenia. “We spent a lot of time and energy discussing this and decided to invest heavily in automation. I believe we can produce right here in Europe, but it must be done in a smart way,” he adds. By the end of 2024, Chipolo will be moving into a 700m2 production plant, fully automated, relying heavily on robotics, giving the company a further boost as it tackles international competition in a very globalised market.