[From left above to right: TV host Uros Slak, Eligma co-founders Joze Mermal and Matej Gregorcic. Left below: Eligma co-founder and CEO Dejan Roljic]
Ever since its public announcement in late February, the Eligma project has been subject to extensive media coverage. This time, Eligma founders were invited for an interview by the Slovenian POP TV channel as part of its 24UR evening news. The studio hosted Eligma co-founders Joze Mermal – President of the Management Board of BTC d.d., and Matej Gregorcic – co-founder of the Viberate start-up sensation. Eligma CEO Dejan Roljic joined by Skype from Dubai, where he had just finished his pitch at The Blockchain Innovation & Investment Summit.
The first part of the show discussed one of the most revolutionary features of the Eligma commerce platform – its introduction of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies into the offline and online shopping worlds. In order to perfect Elipay, its transaction system enabling the use of ELI crypto tokens and some other cryptocurrencies as part of the shopping experience, Eligma has partnered with a major Central European shopping and business centre BTC City as its living test lab. Joze Mermal, BTC Management Board President, stated his reasons for making such a major technological step in that particular ecosystem. He stressed the openness to innovation and the need to change business concepts and strategies every 3-4 years as essential to remain competitive in the current times, marked by rapid technological and generational progress. Not keeping up with the trends could bring problems as early as in half a decade.
High technologies pose risks because they entail higher finances, but they also guarantee long-term stability.
Mermal presented milestones in the BTC development, ranging from the ‘BTC City’ concept, which resulted in one of the biggest shopping centres in this part of Europe, to ‘Innovative City’, where the shopping and business areas were upgraded with major innovation hubs and start-ups. BTC’s current direction is ‘Bitcoin City’ – the biggest Slovenian blockchain feat so far, rooted in the findings of the BTC innovation pool. In collaboration with Eligma, ‘Bitcoin City’ furthers the concept of the BTC shopping centre as a future single online platform with cryptocurrencies as an option to use in transactions. Mermal expressed his conviction that, in the online and crypto domains, Slovenia needed a major blockchain platform and that Eligma could actually become one of Europe’s strongest.
The first contracts with BTC City stores to enable the use of Elipay have already been signed, thus becoming part of the first major AI and blockchain living lab in the retail domain. The testing of the Elipay system will begin in the second half of April and take approximately 6 months. Next year, the platform will be taken to other parts of Europe to make sure things operate smoothly. Then, a global Eligma is to follow.
Matej Gregorcic, co-owner of Viberate – a musician booking platform that will change the world according to the European Commission – is present in the Eligma project as a co-founder and advisor to CEO Dejan Roljic. Gregorcic sees parallels between Viberate and Eligma in terms of both entailing databases and data analysis. The Elipay system will also integrate Viberate’s VIB token, enabling BTC transactions with that particular cryptocurrency as well at some point in the future.
Eligma is entering the online market, where the sales reached $2.3 trillion last year. CEO Dejan Roljic stated that he did not see Eligma as competition to online giants like Amazon or Alibaba, but rather as an excellent add-on to complement them in certain segments. He sees the online sales ecosystem as an opportunity where everyone can evolve and grow together.
Eligma is soon to start the token crowdsale phase, attempting to collect $24 mio in total. What happens when the crowdsale ends? According to Roljic, it is going to be work and work alone in order to develop Eligma’s AI discovery, smart inventory, automatic sales listing and crypto token loyalty features. In this, colleague Matej Gregorcic sees Dejan Roljic as the very person who is going to pull this through.
So far, Slovenia has been a country highly conducive to start-ups. Dejan Roljic is the founder of ABC Accelerator, which has accelerated over 80 and invested into about 60 foreign start-ups so far.
Home to several major blockchain enterprises, Slovenia is known as the Silicon Valley of blockchain. These are stories and projects of great progress. Joze Mermal denoted their technologies as highly progressive and set to benefit humankind.
Eligma’s crowdsale starts on April 17.