Mate Rimac and Sacha Dragic lead the biggest fitness tech round in CEE - Rolla

This is the biggest investment for the bosnian ecosystem. Central to this expansion is the Rolla One app, which offers customized and adaptive features tailored to individual fitness level, preferences, and goals.

Founder and CEO Igor Krezic, having once weighed 136 kg and overcome a burnout is intimately familiar with the challenges of staying healthy and not being able to find effective solutions. Krezic also has a strong track record as a seasoned entrepreneur, having founded five companies that collectively generated over 400 jobs and more than 30 million euros in annual revenue. He successfully exited one of them, NSoft, to Sportradar, a NASDAQ-listed company.

Having grown up during the 1990s war in the Balkans, since a kid he had to build the resilience required to overcome obstacles. This background motivates him to find the ultimate solution that empowers individuals to take control of their health and live their best lives.

With 13% of the global population classified as obese, 463 million adults suffering from type 2 diabetes, and heart disease causing 17.3 million annual deaths, physical inactivity, poor nutrition, and a neglect of well-being have become silent epidemics robbing millions of their vitality. Existing health and fitness industry solutions often focus on data collection within closed ecosystems, lacking a comprehensive, holistic approach that supports overall health and fitness goals in an engaging and clear way.

The round was led by Mate Rimac, Croatian entrepreneur and CEO of Rimac Group, and Hellen's Rock, the family office of Sacha Dragic. Both are among the most successful entrepreneurs in the region having built billion dollar businesses from scratch.

With the newly raised funds, Rolla now plans to rapidly expand its customer base while growing its product and commercial teams, establishing another regional development hub in Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with a European commercial hub to spearhead its expansion into Western Europe.

Product-wise, Rolla stands apart from existing health and fitness platforms by prioritizing ease of access, creating a low barrier to start, integrating data from connected services, and promoting user inclusivity. This all culminates with the gamified user journey, habits, and goals, providing a comprehensive solution for health and fitness from beginner through intermediate to advanced levels. Rolla’s gamification system combines two intertwined layers of progression: Levels (long-term) and Effort (daily), encouraging users by giving them short term rewards, while also helping them make long term progress.

Adding to its uniqueness, Rolla's virtual world offers high-quality graphics and a gamified experience. As a streaming solution, Rolla also eliminates the need for dedicated hardware, further reducing the barriers to entry.

“The beauty of our system is in its balance and interplay - the Levels and Effort interact to create a continuous feedback loop, sustaining your engagement and rewarding you for both your everyday steps and long-term achievements. We're introducing a gamified experience that transcends the norm of data-driven health apps and provides a clear, navigable path towards health and fitness improvement,” Krezic shares.

According to Statista, the fitness app market is projected to show an annual growth rate of 14.34% in the next five years.

The company rolled out beta versions of its Rolla One and Rolla World apps for early adopters earlier this year. The full versions, offering a complete gamified fitness experience, will be ready to launch in Q1 of 2024.

Mate Rimac, a renowned inventor and entrepreneur, brings valuable expertise and resources to Rolla's journey. He founded Rimac Automobili and Greyp Bikes and is currently the CEO of the Rimac Group, Rimac Technology and Bugatti Rimac. Starting Rimac Automobili in his garage in 2009, Mate has grown it into a unicorn with more than 2,000 employees, a joint venture with Porsche, and the creation of the world's fastest electric hypercar.

Sacha Dragic, the founder of Superbet Group, is a seasoned entrepreneur from Central and Eastern Europe. He scaled Superbet to a multi-billion-dollar company, attracting $175M from Blackstone Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms. Hellen's Rock is a single family office founded by Sacha Dragic. The firm backs unconventional founders and teams making significant strides in health & wellbeing, finance, education and entertainment, and who are building organizations that have a meaningful and lasting impact on lives and communities.