What’s New: Fall/Winter 2024

Let's start with investments, both new ones and follow-on in already funded companies.

DeepScout (AI, e-commerce)

DeepScout supports e-commerce companies (and soon other industries) in making smarter business decisions by delivering insights into product selections and competitor pricing. Learn more on our blog or check out insights from Tomáš Hodboď, DeepScout’s founding investor, on X or LinkedIn.

For more on our AI ventures, visit miton.cz/ai/

MitonC (crypto)

Our crypto division invested in six projects last year. Three were already covered in our previous update, and the complete list is available on our blog.

Additionally, Filip Široký, who joined MitonC a year ago and is responsible for new investments, was promoted to General Partner—congrats, Filip! Forbes covered this milestone.

Miton gastrotech

Our team focused on the digitalization of the gastronomy sector has grown and also made investments—both in new and existing projects, primarily in POS systems. More details are available on our blog.

Graet (Social Network for Athletes)

The "LinkedIn for Athletes" is thriving. Our initial investment in Graet was made at the end of 2023, and as the project gains promising momentum, we invested another €600,000. Read more on our blog.

Bookbot (re-commerce)

The second-hand book marketplace is growing in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and foreign countries. Bookbot secured a €4 million investment from Genesis Growth Equity Fund I and Miton to support its expansion into the DACH region. More details on EU-Startups.

Miton AI Times

A regular series with a growing community of mostly tech people organized by AI lead at GLAMI, Tonda Hoskovec.

On February 27th, the speaker will be Augustin Žídek, a longtime researcher at DeepMind (AlphaFold team) that won the Nobel Prize last year. Save the date or join the MeetUp group to stay updated.

Miton AI Newsletter (in Czech)

Our AI newsletter is now published every two weeks, bringing you even more insights while keeping its clear and accessible format. Whether you're an AI expert or just curious about the latest trends, our newsletter helps you stay informed effortlessly. Subscribe now and never miss an update.

Miton AI microsite

Visit miton.cz/ai/ to see all our AI-related initiatives.

Recommended AI reads

• Build Software Products for the Age of AGI – an article by Rossum co-founder Petr Baudiš
• The Unreasonable Hype of Generalist AI Agents – also by Petr Baudiš, a more recent
• AI vs. SaaS – a piece for CzechCrunch by Miton AI Newsletter author František Dalecký

For our podcast (in Czech), we are looking for Czech and Slovak professionals making an impact in globally successful tech companies. We call this series 'Czech-Slovak Footprint,' which already has six episodes. Each one is excellent because we feature remarkable individuals with inspiring stories.

• Alžbeta Dlhá (Notion): From Prague to San Francisco, from McKinsey to a startup
• Marie Petrovická (DELLI): Co-founder and CEO of DELLI, ex-VP USA at Depop
• Vlad Hruška (Miro): On the record-breaking exit of Around and why it's such a great product
• Kristína Čahojová (Kegg): Building a femtech startup
• Rasty Turek: Serial founder on the quirks of founders and the future of entertainment
• Maty Boháček: Stanford genius student on AI trends

One of our latest guests was Tomáš Čupr, whose episode became the most listened to in our podcast’s history within a week.

Founders dinner at Sasazu

Photos from the winter founders dinner perfectly illustrate the diversity of Miton’s portfolio. It was a fantastic evening—check out the gallery here.

ESOP

Lukáš Konečný from Y Soft Ventures regularly posts the best updates (in Czech) on his LinkedIn. To sum up: "ESOP in 2024 and 2025—startups are still waiting, and they’ll have to wait even longer." At least a startup association has formed under Martin Jiránek’s leadership, and Czech Founders are also becoming more active, thanks in part to Bára Werdmölder. Slowly but surely, startups are gaining attention in government circles. It would be great if the year weren't 2025.

Re-commerce

We continue with our Twitter account, Zirkuliere!, where we share everything interesting in the re-commerce space—news, insights, and market trends. One of our latest outputs is a German map of the re-commerce market.

We are hiring

We are looking for:

• VC Research Analyst
• Curious and talented people for our portfolio projects

You can also check out the previous article:

• What's new: Spring/Summer 2024