What's New: March 2019
Michala Gregorová
A summary for the founders and managers of our companies, here on the web in a slightly censored version. New Forbes and the web, business results, and where to get a great cup of coffee.
Subscribers received their new issue of Forbes today, and tomorrow it will grace newsstands. If the faces on the cover look familiar, it’s no coincidence. The new issue has a feature that maps Miton’s history.
Thanks to Forbes, we’ve had to speed up the launch of our new website. A small task for builders of online businesses, you might think, but the amount of work it’s taken …
As always, a little review of events. First, a big thanks to everyone who came to the founders’ dinner in March – photos on view here. The next opportunity to meet will be on Wednesday, 17 April, when we will host Filip Brýdl in our “company builders” series. If you would like to join but are not in one of our companies, write to me. We might squeeze you in.
Not everyone likes to share their figures, but business results are a much-appreciated media topic. The latest to publicise their numbers was IdealniNajemce.cz with gross earnings of more than 100 million Czech crowns (4 million Euro). Great work all around.
As usual, Rohlik.cz introduced new initiatives, including a new campaign, shares for employees and shopping with recipes from Roman Vaněk.
Competitions don’t win new business, but they sure can help. Several of our companies were recognised in the Zonky Innovation Awards: Rohlik.cz, UlovDomov/IdealniNajemce.cz and Twisto. And Kamil Demuth, the founder of Scuk.cz, won the third prize in the Czech Startupper of the Year award (part of the global Startupper of the Year by Total).
Recommended reading and listening:
- Why ugly websites work (pdf)
- Survey of salaries in the Czech online arena (pdf)
- Forbes podcast with Tomáš Čupr:In Czechia we are self-conscious about success and try not to stand out
- Profile of Bonami CEO David Šiškaon Aktuálně.cz
- Interview with musician Jon Hopkins (future business angel of the London-based project Wavepaths, into which we have also invested) about music, mental health and psychedelics
Where to get a great coffee
Because most people didn’t know the cafe/bakery Alfabet, where we held our founders’ dinner in March, I’m adding a few tips for similar trendy/hipsta cafes. All but the last are in Prague. If you haven’t visited at least three of them, you’re out of the running!
Můj šálek kávy (Karlín)
Místo (Dejvice, the same owners)
EMA espresso bar (Florenc)
Café Lounge (they also have really good food, Újezd)
Letka (Letná)
Vnitroblock (Holešovice)
Café Jen (Vršovice)
Coffee Room (Vinohrady)
Super Tramp Coffee (near Národní)
Na stojáka pak Onesip Coffee (behind Lokál in Dlouhá), Kafe Karlín, Sólista (Letná) and Kafemat (Dejvice)
And of course Brno’s Industra
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Of further interest
What will AI-powered shopping look like? Glami and Biano join forces and test new answers
(Press Release) Two leading Czech search engines from Miton's portfolio, fashion-focused Glami and furniture-focused Biano, are entering a new chapter. As of March 2026, both companies are led by a single CEO, Peter Hupka, who previously headed Biano. Both companies hold normalized data on millions of products data that large language models lack and aim to build on this foundation to develop a new generation of online product discovery tools.
What happened: Fall/Winter 2025
The second half of the year, like the whole year (and the two previous ones as well), was marked by AI. This year will be no different. There will be a lot of AI in this summary too. But we’ll also add a bit of crypto and psychedelics.
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.