What’s New: October and November 2019

Rossum has been successful in raising what we believe to be the largest amount of Czech seed funding to date. They have also managed to take one of the best founders’ photos – from left Petr Baudiš, Tomáš Gogár and Tomáš Tunys. Promoted in TechCrunch and VentureBeat, Rossum has raised more than 4.3 million USD so far, with Miton as one of their investors.

The first few episodes of our podcast, which we call Cinkatko, are already out. Others are soon to follow and will include David Špinar in the role of the interviewer.  As you’d expect, he’ll focus on marketing.

Our new podcast begins with a series of four interviews on the theme of customer experience. Although it’s an important area, few firms think about customer experience systematically by looking at their product from the ‘outside in’. It’s also generally considered a ‘soft’ area without a direct and measurable impact on business. Our guests will convince you otherwise. (Podcasts are only in Czech for now.)

Czechcrunch featured a detailed interview with Tomáš Hodboď, in which he spoke about GLAMI’s ambitions to become the largest fashion catalogue in the world, and about the launch of the company’s sustainable fashion search engine Glami.eco.

The NHL club Las Vegas Golden Nights is using Sense Arena’s VR training. Their manager, Kerry Bubolz, had this to add: “Sense Arena’s cutting-edge technology will provide hockey players of all skill levels with an innovative way to develop their skills.” Follow this link to Forbes to learn more.

They’re growing fast! Deloitte has published its top50 list of the fastest growing technology firms in Central Europe, and Czech firms claimed 19 spots. Our congratulations go to GLAMI, Rohlík and GoOut for making the cut.

Once more about Rohlík, whose fast growth is no coincidence. Tomáš Čupr’s team is working hard to make sure the company grows, and their latest news is the acquisition of the wholesale and manufacturing arms of Sklizeno.  To learn about Rohlík’s international expansion plans, which include Budapest and Vienna, read the following interview on E15.cz

Miton has a new team member. Anna Paličková has left Corpin to join Miton as an Associate, a position known internally as ‘padawan’.

A group photo from our ‘+1’ breakfast on the topic of radical honesty. If you’d like to visit one of our upcoming breakfasts (January 10 is themed ‘How to talk about sex so it’s not uncomfortable’ and February 14 is ‘I am remarkable’, a Google workshop for women), you just need to know someone from Miton, Biano, GLAMI, Driveto or Sense Arena and ask them to take you as their +1. 

Recommended reading, watching and listening:

• The detailed annual report State of European Tech.
• Ben Horowitz, the author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things, has published a new book. What You Do Is Who You Are focuses on company culture. 
• Part 1 of a four-part series of posts about building a marketplace. 
• Deep Tech Trends 2019.
• An article about how difficult it is to find a CMO. 
• If you need a new car, write to Adam (or at least read this). 
• If you’ve been wondering why women haven’t caught up to men in terms of pay, watch Why Women Are Paid Less on Netflix Explained (there’s also an episode about women’s orgasms).
• The brilliant podcast by the therapist Esther Perel has a new series called How’s Work? The series focussed on relationships among colleagues, co-founders or people in family companies. 
• If you’re not feeling 100% mentally healthy, perhaps you’ll find this summary helpful. 
• Read here why you should raise kids to be kind rather than successful. 
• If you are fed up with your mobile phone and have an Android, try these Google apps to improve your digital wellbeing.

P.S. This is not news, but it’s still valid. We’re looking for people – or more precisely, our companies are looking for people for all kinds of roles. If you’re not happy with your current work, look at our available positions. If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably right for us ☺