UTILITER: Twenty Years Building Hospitality Software for Europe’s Most Demanding Market

Founded in Varaždin, Croatia, in 2005, UTILITER is a SaaS company building software for tourism, retail, and hospitality. Its product suite covers property management, cashless payments, and AI-driven analytics. Last year, the company ranked 41st on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list for Central Europe, recording 682% revenue growth between 2021 and 2024. We spoke to its CEO, Zoran Buntic, about what that growth took and where the company is heading in 2026.

You were recently listed on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 for Central Europe. What does that recognition mean for the business?

For us, it reflects the progress the company has made over time and signals that the work is now being recognised beyond our immediate markets. UTILITER was founded in 2005, and today we have a team of more than 50 specialists: developers, data experts, AI engineers, implementation leads, and customer support. That recognition validates twenty years of work in one of the most demanding verticals in European tech.

What problem were you originally solving, and has that changed?

The sectors we work in, hospitality, hotels, food service, and retail, face intense pressure on costs, staff shortages, and rising guest expectations. Our solutions are designed specifically for this vertical. We’ve been in this space for over two decades. Working closely with operators across hospitality and retail shaped the portfolio into what it is now, a suite of solutions built around how these businesses actually run.

AVA.LIT manages the whole hospitality operation, whether that’s a restaurant, cafe, delivery, or delivery service. RECE.VIT covers hotel, hostel, and camp guest and reservation management across single and multi-property setups. MAKE.IT extends the ecosystem into retail, enabling unified operations across hospitality and commerce

Each is built on its own architecture. That means clients work with one system and one point of accountability, not multiple developers and partners, which we’ve seen is especially important in the hospitality industry. That turnkey approach is a large part of why clients choose to work with us long term. We build the software, we implement it, and we support it ourselves. 

What are you most proud of from twenty years of building UTILITER?

That we built a company from Croatia that stands alongside the leading European players in this industry. We have spent two decades building and refining our products in the Adriatic region, one of Europe’s most operationally intense tourism markets, and the systems have held up. The results can be seen in the long-term improvements in revenue and efficiency achieved by our clients.

What does the AI work you are developing actually do for a hospitality operator?

Hospitality businesses produce large amounts of operational data and historically use very little of it well. UtiliterAI, our specialized integration, applies predictive modelling for business analytics and automation so that managers can make faster, better-grounded decisions. In day-to-day business, that looks like forecasting demand and staffing needs more accurately, identifying revenue opportunities before they’re missed, automating routine operational decisions, and improving guest experience through data-driven insights. AI isn’t an add-on for us – it’s becoming a core layer across the entire product ecosystem.

This year UTILITER is in active international expansion. What does that mean in practice?

We are moving into new European markets and deepening existing partnerships across the region. The UK is a deliberate part of that. We are investing in advanced AI models and strategic integrations with major technology and payment platforms that will extend what our products can do for clients. Our track record in some of Europe’s most operationally demanding hospitality environments gives us a strong base to bring to new ones. The work now is making sure the right operators in the right markets know we exist.

UTILITER arrives in the UK market with twenty years of operational proof and a growth record that placed it 41st among the fastest-moving technology companies in Central Europe. Their software runs daily operations across hotels, restaurants, and venues throughout one of Europe’s busiest tourism regions. For clients in a sector that runs on reliability, that long-term experience and consistency are often the reasons they choose UTILITER in the first place.