founding members
Karel Obluk
Karel Obluk is a partner in Evolution Equity Partners, a venture capital fund that invests in Europe and North America to start-up companies with global ambitions, particularly in the following areas: IT, IT security, information systems, and machine learning. He is a founder of business angel group Garage Angels and has several smaller angel investments in the Czech Republic and abroad. Karel studied computer science at the Brno University of Technology; worked in technical and executive roles, among others as CTO and CEO of AVG Technologies. He is a member of the Kauffman Fellows Society.
Jiří Hlavenka
Jiří Hlavenka, an investor and entrepreneur, has been involved with companies such as Computer Press, Vltava.cz, Net Direct, as an investor and in various executive roles. He co-founded and invested in Kiwi.com. Currently, Jiří is an active investor in more than 20 startups.
Peter Skrla
Peter Skrla is a seasoned executive with 30 years of experience in three areas of business: start-ups, venture capital, and corporate restructuring. Having spent significant time in North America, Africa, and Europe with extensive travel elsewhere, he loves cross-cultural situations and complex challenges.
Garage Angels
Garage Angels is an informal vehicle of individual investors mostly from the south of Moravia. They invest in start-ups in their first, “angel”, stages. They share know-how, co-invest, together as well as individually. They are involved in the success of the new local companies and make their money work for them – clever business model, with high risk, and even higher rewards.
Fazole Ventures
Fazole Ventures is a family investment fund run by an entrepreneur Pavel Bouška and former banking executive Luboš Černý. The fund invests in B2B start-ups in their early stages. When investing, the fund often syndicates with other business angels so that they can support the invested company the best they can with additional know-how and relevant connections.
members
DEPO Angels
DEPO Angels is an angel investor network focused mainly but not exclusively on projects and investors from the CEE region. To their members, they offer quick access to exciting projects with global ambition. The founder of DEPO Angels, Petr Šíma, has 30 years of experience working in investments and consulting.
Richard Grethe
Richard is a Chartered Accountant with over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. With his broad financial, commercial and operational background, he enjoys helping businesses grow to their full potential. He worked for Wellcome plc, Medeva, Celltech and UCB and was one of the founding members of Focus Pharmaceuticals. Richard was a CFO of Random42 Scientific Communication, and became a Non-Executive Director of Graphite Capital in 2017, where he is still on the Board.
Michael Rostock
Michal is an entrepreneur and investor who likes statistics. He is a founding partner of VICF and has been involved with companies such as Safetica, Retailys, Gina Software, Novicom, FeedYou, SealIT and BizBox. His exits include iMall, GoPay, Cognitive Security and UI Path. Michal studied law at Charles University in Prague and graduated from Oxford University and the University of Cambridge.
Peter Ridder
Peter has worked in finance for 40 years and has been doing angel, venture capital and private equity investing since 2006. He invests through a family investment company located in the US. The focus is on start-ups in the US and Europe. Peter has been living in Prague for 25 years.
Purple Ventures
Purple Venture is a venture capital fund with roots in Brno. After more than 30 successful investments within their first closed fund, they are opening a second fund that will again deploy private funds from the Purple Group. However, unlike the first fund, this one is open to external investors as well. Purple Ventures specializes in early-stage investments with significant growth potential.
Jaroslav Havel
Jaroslav Havel is the founder of HAVEL & PARTNERS. He has over 20 years of experience in venture capital. As early as in 2005, he has been instrumental in the development of this legal specialisation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He has been investing in selected funds and promising startups for 15 years. Jaroslav is an experienced investor with exceptional know-how and market insight. His extensive experience, excellent reputation and exceptional work commitment, including his unique contacts make him a sought-after advisor.
Czech Founders
Czech Founders is a non-profit organization uniting founders of startups in the Czech Republic who have global ambitions. It is the largest community of its kind in the country, operating on the 'founders-to-founders' principle. In practise, this means that all activities of the organization, whether they are networking events, mastermind groups, incubation bootcamp programs, Slack #forum, or collaborations with international startup organizations, always stem from the needs of its members.
Hustá
Hustá is a communications agency specializing in the technology sector. Its client portfolio includes the most prominent names in the Czech startup scene, including unicorns, VC funds, and financial institutions. It also actively engages with and supports the technology community. Therefore, it focuses its investments on what it understands: innovative businesses connected to technology.