Rimac Corporation describes Verne—its new self-driving car-hailing service—as “the next big thing.” First, the founder Mate Rimac founded his own electric company of the same name super car company in Croatia, a country with no history of car manufacturing. Also went. Porsche, Hyundai and Softbank all hold shares. Volkswagen Group gave him a majority stake in the company Bugatti in exchange for access to his propulsion technology in future vehicle models.
Rimac Technology currently supplies electric powertrains to Porsche, BMW and Aston Martin, among others, and the company is also developing advanced energy storage technology.
And now there’s Verne, Mate’s self-driving car-hailing service launching today in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital. Named after French novelist and futurist Jules Verne, it will make its live debut in Zagreb first in 2026, followed by Manchester in the UK. Deals have been signed to bring the service to nine additional cities in Europe and the Middle East, and Verne is in talks to roll it out to another 30 cities worldwide.
So can this ambitious but fast-growing startup from a small country do the nearly impossible and get a solid foundation? robotaxi service is running ahead of most other players in the space — including Tesla, which unveiled its own service robotaxi in August?
Don’t bet against it. Verne was founded by Mate and two of his closest colleagues and friends: Marko Pejković, currently CEO of Verne, and Adriano Mudri, designer of Rimac Nevera hypercar and is currently design director at Verne. Rimac Group has a 55% stake in Verne, with the remainder held by Saudi investors.
The idea has been in development since at least 2019. Verne has employed 280 people and at its global launch it revealed a complete ecosystem of app buildings, cars and “vessels”. mother,” where the vehicles will return to be charged and cleaned.
