Ondrek & Co is a family-owned investment firm with roots in technology and design

For more than 10 years, we’ve delivered projects worldwide — from an award-winning digital banking platform to innovations in finance, media, and defense.

Our journey spans continents. We have lived and worked in Amsterdam, Vienna, Karlsruhe, Seoul, and Bratislava, collaborating with clients from Switzerland, the United States, and across Europe. We've lived and worked in Amsterdam, Vienna, Karlsruhe and Seoul, partnering with clients from Switzerland, the US, and across Europe. This global experience reinforced one belief: long-term value comes from focus and ownership.

This international experience sharpened our perspective while grounding us in a core belief: long-term value comes from focus, ownership, and commitment.

Focus

We don’t chase every opportunity. We say ‘no’ far more often than ‘yes’. But when we commit, we commit for the long term. With our colleagues and our investors.

This philosophy shapes how we invest.

We focus narrowly on areas where we have unique expertise and we deliver exceptional outcomes by going deep, not broad.

Our work has been recognized with global awards like Red Dot and iF Design, and our software innovations have been protected with multiple trademarks.

We don’t fear change — we engineer through it. Resilience is the strategy.

Invested in neighborhood

We believe strong companies need strong roots. That’s why Ondrek & Co is not just headquartered in Bratislava’s historic Old Town — we are an active part of its life. Our office is located on Grosslingova Street, in what many call the ‘SOHO of Bratislava’.

The space itself reflects who we are: a ground-floor headquarters, open to the street, designed with award-winning architecture and built to last. We host events, welcome partners, and remain fully transparent.

Ownership matters to us—we own our office, just as we own our homes. This independence makes us resilient in times of crisis, whether during pandemics, economic downturns, or fleeting business fads.

A swiss partner

Our closest and most enduring cooperation today is with a Swiss-based group with deep roots in Central Europe. What began as a single project has grown into a multi-year partnership spanning three projects and dozens of initiatives.

Over the past four years, we have delivered hedge-fund solutions, investor portals, research platforms, and major media projects.

This cooperation is both demanding and rewarding. It requires flexibility, perfectionism, and the ability to pivot even at the last moment — sometimes rebuilding months of work overnight to reach the highest standard.

We have thrived in this environment, consistently delivering on time, often ahead of schedule, and always with uncompromising quality. The result is a collaboration built not just on contracts, but on mutual trust and respect, at both a professional and human level.

The Banking Legacy

We were there at the very beginning. In 2015, a small Viennese innovation hub started experimenting with what would become one of the most successful internet banking platforms in Central and Eastern Europe.

We joined on the very beginning, when the idea was still just a prototype. What followed was extraordinary. That prototype grew into a full-scale digital banking platform now serving over 60 million clients across Austria, Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, and Croatia. Billions of euros flow through it daily. The responsibility was immense, but so was the opportunity.

Through our company ‘1990’, we became one of the longest-standing partners on the project. What started as a small contribution on the frontend side turned into a decade-long engagement.

Eventually, we sold the company, along with the team we had built, but our mark on the platform remains. It is still one of the most advanced and widely adopted internet banking systems in the world—a legacy we are proud to have helped shape.

A Military-Grade Vision

Bearicorn is not a client project—it is ours. After years of building for others, we created a brand that reflects our own vision of security, privacy, and technological independence. The name itself is a fusion of bear and unicorn: strength and ambition.

Bearicorn is a self-hosted, end-to-end encrypted suite combining secure messaging, password management, and document storage. Unlike mainstream solutions, it does not rely on the cloud, subscriptions, or lock-in.

You pay once, host it yourself, and retain control.

For high-profile clients — governments, institutions, and global leaders — this means trust without compromise.

We believe Bearicorn will become a standard for those who cannot afford weak links in their digital lives. Its branding, design, and strategy have been built with the same perfectionism we demand of ourselves and our partners.

With a fast-growing community and early traction, it is more than a product. It is a statement: software you can trust with your life.

Our Word

We don’t build fragile companies. We don’t believe in short-term hype, loans, or chasing quick wins. We build businesses that can survive crises, pandemics, and decades of change.

When we take ownership of a project, we do it fully. Not as an outside contractor, but as partners who carry the same weight of responsibility as our clients. Sometimes that means saying ‘no’. Sometimes it means working for years without direct financial gain. For us, it has never been about money. It has always been about building trust, about creating something worth standing behind, about doing the kind of work we would choose to do even if no one paid us. We know that no one achieves anything alone. The only way to build something that lasts is together — with partners who share the same commitment and vision.

That is why we approach business differently: with ownership, with persistence, with courage to go against the current when everyone else follows the crowd. In the short term, we may look unconventional. In the long term, that’s exactly why we endure.