We began as a humble startup in 2015, looking to reinvent a simple public bench as a source of sustainable energy that can help people stay connected in time of need. The idea of a smart bench was born when our founder and CEO, Ivan Mrvoš worked to develop a charging table prototype for the hospitality industry. He soon figured out that a public bench, powered by renewable solar energy, is a more sustainable solution that can also serve as a public wi-fi hotspot and can be accessible to everybody.

After designing and building the first smart bench prototype himself, Ivan was on a mission to introduce his innovation to local cities and municipalities who want to make it available to citizens and visitors as part of their public service. He sold 27 benches in the first 6 months and realized he will have to hire more people to help him. A Steora brand was then launched in December of 2015, and in the following years, the smart bench concept has been recognized and accepted worldwide not just as a standard in the smart city industry, but also as a learning tool about the benefits of renewable energy that anybody can experience.

Include has since grown into a smart city powerhouse that designs, develops, and manufactures a variety of in-house solutions to address key challenges faced by cities and local governments, including sustainability, clean energy, public connectivity, micromobility, air pollution, and waste management.

After the initial installation of Steora in early 2016, the first serially produced smart bench in the world, over 1,700 Include’s smart benches have been shipped to over 500 cities and municipalities around the world, reaching 60+ countries across six continents.

We were involved in numerous Smart City initiatives after being recognized by Deutsche Telekom Group, Nokia, Kia, and many other global brands who also acquired and endorsed our products.

So far we’ve raised investment capital in a total of €3.4 million to help us scale our vision of smarter, more sustainable communities. We’ve put these funds toward research and development of new smart city technologies, as well as the construction of our large-scale manufacturing facility consisting of metal parts processing, welding workshop, painting chamber, SMT pick and place machine, and an assembly line. By controlling the entire manufacturing process in-house, we ensure quicker delivery times, higher quality control, and lower prices for our partners and customers.

Include products are made entirely in the European Union, with local components and our ingenuity, research, and design expertise. Every product we create is built to the highest quality standards, as attested by industry certifications like CE.

Making our communities a better place to live is at the heart of all we do. That is why we are constantly researching, developing, and innovating sustainable smart city solutions that can benefit the greater good.

#IncludeYourself in making our communities a better place to live in.