Katapult - The Startup Accelerator in Zasavje

A Simple Idea of Sharing By Petra Skarja, author and entrepreneur The first time I heard about the Katapult project was in 2014 when a large abandoned building of a failed company in Trbovlje was being renovated. "We want to create a kind of Silicon Valley of Slovenia," said Jure Knez, president and co-founder of Dewesoft. Here in Trbovlje? “Yeah, right here”. But did he really believe that? Sure, he did! Neighboring Dewesoft had bought the empty 2000 m2 large factory building, formerly housing part of the company Iskra. It was being renovated and would give space for Katapult – a business accelerator where young entrepreneurs with innovative ideas could germinate and grow. A vision appropriately named after the ancient ballistic devices used to launch stones a great distance or maybe the forked stick with an elastic band fastened to the two prongs, used by children for shooting small stones. We were walking around the construction site when he enthusiastically painted a detailed image of Katapult. I envisioned a similar work environment to that of Google, although significantly smaller. A Community in Need Silicon Valley – it was a high-flying dream. But it is not forbidden to dream... Let me explain, to us Slovenes, Trbovlje is an area where you really never go - unless you happen to have relatives who in the past worked in the mines. Trbovlje, once a proud mining town, is hidden between high hills in a 7 kilometers long narrow valley at the Sava River in Eastern-central Slovenia. The town and the whole Zasavje region have in recent years experienced many unpleasant blows from the collapse of the brown coal mining and the related industrial plants.

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