Global business from Brno without the help of investor money? IDEA StatiCa proves that it can be done. All you need is a unique product, ambition to break into the world and entrepreneurial confidence. Read the story of a company that has made its mark in the Americas and Asia, growing 35% year-on-year, with a clear vision: to improve the world of construction.
Do you know the process of building? Each one starts with an architectural design – the future form of the building, from which the structural engineer simulates the distribution of forces. Basic calculations are usually no problem, but with criticalstructural details – concrete sections or steel liaisons – it’s much more complicated. Calculating whether a proposed solution is safe or not would take hundreds of hours of work and the result would be uncertain. The impact? Builders are adding thousands of cubic metres of concrete and tonnes of extra steel to buildings just to be on the safe side .
At a time when society is dealing with a shortage of raw materials in many industries – including construction – this is unnecessary. Especially when there is an elegant solution: software from the Brno-based company IDEA StatiCa, which delivers completely safe results accurately and very quickly.“We can see froma lot of calculations that beam profiles could – while maintaining maximum safety – be reduced by up to a third,” explains IDEA StatiCa CEO Juraj Šabatka.
Into the world without an investor
That there is interest in a more sustainable approach around the world is clearly demonstrated by the numbers. In 2024 ,IDEA StatiCa sold 22 million euros worth of its software . The company has 40,000 paying users and is growing by more than a third year on year.“Around 1.5 million calculations are made with our software per month – that is, a million and a half times someone asks whether a building can be built like this, whether this construction detail will last or not,” continues Juraj Šabatka.
The company has reached these impressive figures purely by using its own money and strength – and it has no plans for external investment in the future. The key for the company was to enter the US market, which it did thanks to JIC. “Through JIC we got a very interesting link to the Czech ambassador in the USA. Thanks to him, we reached our target group and found three great partners – specifically three American universities,” recalls Juraj Šabatka.
The main ingredients for success? Entrepreneurial self-confidence
The validation documentation gave them much needed credibility in the US market . And they had to work hard for the rest – just like in the Asian market. There could be more successful companies like IDEA StatiCa. “Very sophisticated science is done inthe Czech Republic. The problem is that we don’t translate technology into a product that generates paying customers. And the high margin then goes abroad,” reflects Juraj Šabatka. He would therefore like to see more companies built and managed from Brno – just as IDEA StatiCa does. In his opinion , we need to build entrepreneurial self-confidence.
“At JIC, we have been through all phases of supporting
– from basic start up programs where we handled the office, to the business plan, to primary service, to mentoring
and developing key people in scale-up. Lukáš Maňásek has done a great value for us – in the first phase as a JIC expert, currently as our great head of business. When you have a specific problem, you can instantly connect via JIC to several people who have recently solved the same problem and who will be happy to advise you. Likewise, I occasionally get a call from someone to get advice on setting up a US office. It’s a very beautiful and natural collaboration. ”
Juraj Šabatka
CEO of IDEA StatiCa
Italian model of a family business
Without knowing it, the company proceeded to run the company according to the so-called Italian model. “Infamily businesses in Italy, they have a nice rule that they don’t include children in the company structure right away, but first send them to make a career elsewhere. Only when they gain credibility can they get involved,” explains Juraj Šabatka. He took over the management with the necessary experience from his father, the founder Lubomir Šabatka, who remained in the company as chairman of the supervisory board.
The company remains family-owned, although it already employs 120 people – 80 in Brno and 40 others in branches abroad. “Family is not the main attribute, even though it is what the company is based on. Above all, we make sure that we don’t slip into a corporation. That’s why we have a very lean management and we want to keep all processes agile,” smiles Juraj Šabatka. If they do recruit people, it will be for branches abroad. Their goal for 2025 is to stabilize the American and Asian “leg” of the company and go deeper in these markets.
The biggest competitor? Pencil and paper
There are currently only about 700,000 structural engineers worldwide and the number of students is decreasing. The main trend is therefore to automate calculations, including with the help of artificial intelligence.“If we want to build more efficiently in the next decades, we need to help engineers in the form of significantly faster designs so that they can complete the project in high quality with maximum safety,” believes Juraj Šabatka.
The uniqueness of the product is (so far unsuccessfully) imitated by some plagiarists. IDEA StatiCa, however, continues to develop its unique software, leaving the competition miles behind. The company’s biggest competitor is thus the old way of doing things. And that they got by with it when they built the Roman Colosseum? “They also needed 60,000 slaves to build it, it took eight years and drained the state budget at the time. And we certainly don’t want to build like that today,” concludes Juraj Šabatka with a smile.
IDEA StatiCa was supported by JIC thanks to its membership in the Enterprise Europe Network.
