What’s New: December 2018 and January 2019
Michala Gregorová
Šimon Vostrý joined us to speak about his 40-million-Euro exit. Sense Arena exhibited at CES. Rohlik.cz reports profits. And our tips for good reading and listening.
As part of our “company builders” series we met with Šimon Vostrý, who spoke openly about his big exit. The exit did not last just a year and half, as it appeared from the outside, but more like 20 years. Shame if you missed the talk. In March we will welcome Pavel Zima to our offices at Corso for a chat with David Špinar about the experience of building Seznam.
The influencer marketing event with Petr and Jirka Král is almost fully booked, with 50 planned participants. If the topic interests you (we have reserved five spots for outside guests), please sign up as soon as possible.
Sense Arena took part in CES and the months of intensive planning have paid off. Thanks to Sense Arena’s great presence and the involvement of the former NHL player Patrik Eliáš, the project grabbed the attention of American media outlet Wired and many other important players, including the NHL’s marketing director. Keep your fingers crossed that our new contacts translate into contracts. Sense Arena is off to a great start.
Speaking of hard work, we must praise the great work of the team at Rohlik. In 2018 the company managed a turnover of nearly 100 million Euro (!) and profits nearing 1.2 million Euro. After a very tough 2017, these are fantastic numbers – and they're only the beginning!
Did you get our Christmas puzzle? Were you able to open it? It wasn’t that hard – we needed only one long meeting to solve it :)
Many of you were clever enough to open the box and choose your favourite charity. Thanks to you we are sending 44,000 Czech crowns to Zdravotni klaun, 13,000 Czech crowns to Nadace Krasa pomoci and 13,000 to Trash Hero.
P.S. In their campaign “Thanks, mum, for Christmas”, Bonami raised more than 500,000 Czech crowns.
Recommended reading and listening:
- Sequoia Capital’s Seven Questions. The concept is simple – almost dull: an interesting individual, usually a company founder, responding to seven standard questions. Before you know it, you’re reading the newsletter every week from start to finish.
- "47 red-hot tech startups that became worth billions this year"
- "How to Change Your Mind". Psychedelics are a hot topic, so much so that an entire session was devoted to them at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Read this book if you want to know why.
- Michal’s tips:
Obra Dinn - most original detective game of 2018 (Steam)
Black Mirror Bandersnatch - first interactive movie by Netflix
Beat Saber - music+lightsabers now on PS4 VR
- Most! Dycky Most (Forbes).
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Of further interest
PangeAI emerges from stealth to democratize access to geospatial data
(press release) A startup founded by Johanna von der Leyen and Marek Miltner at Stanford is changing the way companies and public institutions work with geospatial data. Instead of needing to hire a team of GIS experts, PangeAI agents allow making complex analyses and decisions involving physical infrastructure as easy as typing a prompt. The goal is to make the physical world as searchable and understandable as the digital one.
Every company wants to become more efficient thanks to AI, and almost none succeed. Miton is investing €400k into a startup that wants to fix this.
(press release) Even though companies know very well that AI can significantly increase their efficiency, most never get further than paying for ChatGPT accounts for their employees. It’s not motivation they lack - most fail in the implementation phase. The problem lies in the approach companies take: they treat AI as if it were traditional software. And this is exactly where Bandits comes in, a new project by Jiří Štěpánek, Kryštof Mitka and Miton.
Building an AI startup: Discussion with Tomáš Gogár (Rossum) and Martin Schmid (Equilibre).
The guests of the Miton AI Times event were Tomáš Gogár (co-founder and CEO of Rossum) and Martin Schmid (co-founder and CEO of Equilibre), who joined to discuss the challenges of building an AI startup.