What’s New: Winter 2022

Czech business is emancipating, and companies are ever more present in the public realm as good role models. This has also been demonstrated in connection with the war in Ukraine.

New issue of @ForbesCesko. Just the numbers, for example in the case of I. L., are currently much higher 💪💰. I don’t know to what extent you are believers @ilblog, but it says in the bible (and I paraphrase) that who gives generously to a good cause will fare even better. May you @ilblog fare even better!! pic.twitter.com/Zsr5DJ3FTa

— MARTIN (@Freemindman4) April 9, 2022

We have divided our CZK 20 million contribution into two parts: CZK 9 million has been sent directly to organisations (Člověk v tísni/People in Need, Adra and the Czech Red Cross) and 1 million to GLAMI; and we have offered an additional CZK 10 million to our companies to support their efforts, which would otherwise exceed their budget.

As a rule, all of the companies in our portfolio have helped or are helping. As always, Rohlík has proven to be the champion of quick and effective help. Rohlík has long been working with non-profits such as Člověk v tísni (People in Need), organisations that then distribute the donated food to where it is most needed. After discussion with the Rohlík team, we released CZK 2.5 million for this specific purpose.

Jobs for Ukrainians is also a major topic of discussion. Grason’s plan is to give them the chance to find legal work directly without a middleman and with transparent payment. Such jobs would be both full-time but also flexitime, because it is mainly women with children who are fleeing Ukraine The founder of Grason, Karel Mařík, writes more about this on his LinkedIn profile. Grason has also teamed up with Nelisa and the Central Bohemian Region. We are honoured to support them in this endeavour.

Cooperation between the private and public sector was the topic of a wonderful event organised by Via Clarita. The content was based on a study conducted by PAQ Research and the Czech Priorities entitled “Integration of Refugees in the Czech Republic”. Here you can find a summary of the most important points. We however greatly recommend viewing the presentation, which is full of important data. Without this data, it is difficult to imagine and acknowledge the scope of the current immigration wave.

Now from the area of start-ups: Czechcrunch has drafted an overview of the five most important transactions in the technology sector. We were delighted that three of these five transactions pertained to companies in our portfolio: specifically, Rohlík Group, Rossum and Twisto.

Forbes also asked us how much money we invested last year. We answered, and then we found out that it was the most out of all Czech start-up funds. It is hard to say what the situation will be like this year. E15 wrote on article about how the war is changing everything,
including investment strategies.

Back to more positive changes. Joining the Miton team are Kateřina Chvalinová as Financial Manager and Markéta Nováková as HR Business Partner (more in the blog). We are currently looking for two more colleagues: a recruiter and analyst.

I also spoke about recruiting in the new episode of our podcast. My guest was Barbora Habětínková of Shipmonk, a company that made no compromises when looking for technical people. Here is the interview with Barbora.

In addition to new colleagues, Miton has gained two companies as well: the crypto exchange Coinmate and the crypto payment gate Confirmo. We have invested further funds into Qerko, Boataround, Nelisa, Scuk and Knihobot.

What to read and listen to

• Miton partner Milan Zemánek spoke with Czechcrunch about the concept of smart restaurants based on data.
• Jirka and Matt from our crypto fund Miton C spoke in the podcast about web3 and NFT.
• Dozens of clients at Psyon underwent psychedelic ketamine therapy and here is an interview with one of them.

Previous summary: What’s new in 2021