NEWS

22/01 Busy Week at TechSquare (Jan 23-27, 2012)

3 events in 5 days, it’s going to be a busy week at TechSquare:

Monday 1/23 at 6pm: Google Apps in Middle and Large Companies, Part II
The second meetup with Google User Group, for the companies who run their business on Google Apps again.

Thursday 1/26 at 8:30pm: Something Ventured
The Czech premiere of the film Something Ventured - how venture capital was born in Silicon Valley. Followed by discussion with a few guests, in Kino Svetozor.

Friday 1/27 at 9am: Mini BOOTCAMP for Startups
A unique event for startup founders who do their business with ambitions and go global. Mini BOOTCAMP is based on speakers, half from Budapest:
- Marton Szoke - sold his company to Yahoo
- Eduard Kucera - Avast goes to NASDAQ this year
- Vaclav Muchna - Y-Soft expands worldwide
- Cedric Maloux - some his startups suceeded, some failed
- Peter B. Zaboji - was the professor at INSEAD, now investor and director with Europreneurs

20/01 Google Apps in Middle and Large Companies, Part II

There's going to be the second event on Google Apps in TechSquare, now for middle and large companies. You'll meet Bohuslav Dohnal, Filip Kolar and Martin Lepka from netmail. The meetup is aim for IT managers and architects and other users. 

Topics: 

• Google Apps in your company
• CloudLock - control your Google Docs
• Google Message Security & Archiving
• Mobile Devices
• Hot News in Google Apps, Tips&Tricks
• 
  

16/01 Eventful Monday Jan 16

12/01 Mini BOOTCAMP for Startups on Jan 27

It's come out finally. TechSquare and the European Entrepreneurship Foundation, in cooperation with Credo Ventures, would like to invite you to the first Mini BOOTCAMP for Startups held in Prague. The event is dedicated to young Czech entrepreneurs, with the aim to facilitate transfer of know-how from experienced entrepreneurs and investors to early stage startups. The workshop will be focused on building innovative companies with global market potential from the CEE region.

Mini BOOTCAMP for Startups

AGENDA
09.00    Opening & Introduction (Ondrej Bartos)
09.10    Setting the Stage (Peter B. Zaboji)
09.45    The Avast Story (Eduard Kucera)
10.30    The IndexTools Story (Marton Szoke)

11.00 COFFEE BREAK

11.30    Team Building (Zoli Piroska)
12.00    Business Slang – Lingua Franca of Today’s World (Imre Hild)
12.30    The YSoft story (Vaclav Muchna)

13.15 LUNCH

14.15    Don’t Fear Failure (Ondrej Bartos)
14.30    The AllPeers Story (Cedric Maloux)
15.00    PANEL: Thinking About Funding Your Startup (Peter B. Zaboji, Ondrej Bartos, Marton Szoke, Cedric Maloux)

15.50 COFFEE BREAK

16.30    PANEL: What Is the Relevant „region“? (Peter B. Zaboji, Zoli Piroska, Imre Hild, Vaclav Muchna)
17.15    PANEL: Is Exit Strategy Important? (Imre Hild, Ondrej Bartos, Marton Szoke)
18.00    Wrap Up & Closing Session

18.30 Networking & Drinks

SPEAKERS

Seven high profile speakers will share their business experience and personal stories with aspiring entrepreneurs:

Facilitators:

Peter B. Záboji
Peter B. Záboji is the Founder and President of the European Entrepreneurship Foundation, Board Director of the Common Sense Society, President of Winning Angels Think Tank, and a board member of a number of young European ventures. Peter enjoyed a long and distinguished career with Siemens in the US and in Germany. In the nineties, he turned entrepreneur and founded several international companies. Later he became a private equity investor. For many years, Peter was Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD; today he lectures at the CEU Business School.

Ondřej Bartoš
An entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Ondrej experienced his first successful business endeavor before he graduated from college in 1996. Several business enterprises later, he is now managing the early stage venture capital firm Credo Ventures, which he co-founded in January 2009. Until December 2008 he served as the Senior Investment Director of MCI Management S.A., where he was responsible for managing investments in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, and former Yugoslavia. Ondrej views venture capital as a tool to help entrepreneurs reach their goals, execute their visions, and boost the economy by supporting innovative ideas and projects. Since 2009 he also stars in the investment TV show Den D (Dragons‘ Den) on Czech TV.

Guest Speaker Profiles:

Eduard Kučera
Eduard co-founded AVAST (ALWIL Software) with Pavel Baudiš in 1991 as an association in order to independently develop and distribute the avast! anti-virus program. They quickly managed to break into all areas of the public and corporate spheres in Czechoslovakia and dominate the market. A major turning point came after the entry of global competitors. Loss of the market forced a transition to a new business model – the provision of avast! to home users free of charge. Thanks to this innovative approach, the company succeeded in creating a massive worldwide community of users with which they collaborate to improve and localize avast! in many languages – avast! is currently available in 33 versions. Its maximum use of all available technologies and automation allows the company to serve 130 million users worldwide with “a mere” 100 employees. Eduard Kučera strives to have machines (servers) do as much of the work as possible, freeing up his employees’ time for creativity and innovation and making his company more effective and productive.

Václav Muchna
Born in1980, studied Masaryk University in Brno (Informatics), but didn’t finish it. With business Vaclav started at the age of 18, and 2 years later in 2000 he co-founded Y Soft together with his classmate from college. In 2006 he was awarded with Startup Entrepreneur of the Year and in 2010 Technology Entrepreneur of the Year as well as Entrepreneur of the Year in South Moravia. In Y Soft Vaclav has served as a CEO since the beginning, and today the company has over 130 employees, 11 offices around the world and sells in 72 markets.

Zoli Piroska
Zoli Piroska has been involved with early stage start-ups for much of his career. He is currently the founder and Chief Executive Officer of GreenerOne, Inc., a San Francisco based company that develops environmental ratings for thousands of consumer products in the US and the EU.Prior to founding Greener One he led MoodLogic, a digital media company out of San Francisco, CA. He took over the management of MoodLogic with the company being in significant debt, and over a five year period built it into a profitable venture which ultimately had a highly successful exit for its investors. Earlier in his career, Zoli led the sales and business development functions at the venture funded digital entertainment start-up OneBigCD/Amplified Holdings. He also served in the capacity of Director of Operations for CyberCash, where he managed the company’s online payment service. During this time CyberCash had a 70% world-wide market share in Internet based credit card payments. He was the co-founder of two successful start-ups prior to CyberCash, including USMall, Inc. which owned some of the most successful web sites in the mid 1990s as well as Agri-Marketing Group, a food commodity trading firm.Zoli Piroska graduated from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

Imre Hild
Imre’s professional career began in the Tourism business right at the time of the political changes in Hungary. In 1993 he left for the USA to attend Cornell University. After graduation he worked for McKinsey in Budapest then, upon finishing his MBA also at Cornell he joined the lodging practice of Lehman Brothers in New York. Upon his return to Hungary Imre founded Hild Kft. which brought the innovative Life Annuity for Real Estate concept to market. In 2005 he joined OTP and founded OTP Life Annuity which he headed as CEO until the end of 2008. Currently Imre isinvolved as founder / owner in a number of innovative mobile internet startups. Besides professional activities Imre is co-founder of IvyPlus, a network of US Alumni of Ivy League Universities and RETURN, an umbrella organization of US Alumni.Imre holds a BS with Distinction and MBA degree from Cornell University.

Ivan Štefunko
Ivan Štefunko is the co-founder and Chairman of Neulogy. Ivan’s focus is on commercialization of technologies, technology-based start-ups and academic spin-offs. He studied political sciences and international relations at Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris in France and Matej Bel University in Slovakia. Besides being a serial entrepreneur, Ivan has extensive background in media and internet. He co-founded several internet and technology companies, which became number one in their category and respective country, including Euractiv.sk, Pelicantravel.com, Monogram Technologies and wineshop.sk. Over the past 6 years, Ivan has also been extensively advising entrepreneurs on how to better use their skills and assets, and government authorities on how to motivate and support innovative entrepreneurs.

TOPICS

Speakers will cover a wide variety of topics such as:

Starting your business
All of our guest speakers have a personal story to tell. What are their lessons learned? How to start your company? How to build a great team? What are the mistakes to avoid?

Raising capital
Most entrepreneurs are concerned with how to raise capital to finance their innovative idea. All of our guest speakers are entrepreneurs themselves and some of them even turned angel investors. So how did they approach investors? And what do they expect from their investee companies?

Expanding within/from the CEE region
Is it true that you can only build a globally successful startup from the Silicon Valley? Our guest speakers seem to defy this assertion. What are the specificities of starting an innovative business in the CEE region? How can one turn seemingly inferior location into competitive advantage?

Exits
Exits are certainly an exciting period for both, investors as well as entrepreneurs. Though rare in our latitude, our guest speakers will tell us about their first hand experience with IPOs and M&As.

ABOUT

About EEF
The European Entrepreneurship Foundation is a non-profit organization – created in 2006. Its vision is to foster entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial culture in Europe. The European Entrepreneurship Foundation (EEF) works Europe-wide, to catalyze an entrepreneurial society in which job creation, innovation, and the economy flourish.

About TechSquare
TechSquare was established in 2010 with the vision to establish the first business accelerator in Prague, which would bring to innovative technology companies the concept of a modern office space together with professional services around, events and community.

REGISTRATION

03/01 Something Ventured Screening on Jan 26 in Prague

Some ideas are crazy. But not so risky like the beginnings of Apple, Intel and company in Silicon Valley.

We've begun with Movie Nights at TechSquare just a few months agou – film evenings for a couple of guys, with someone involved in shooting or from the field. Czech Made Man with Jan Barta. Fishead with Vaclav Dejcmar. In Search of the Valley with Ondrej Bartos.

We had a crazy idea from the beginning: to get a mainstream startup film to Prague and hold a screening in a real cinema (simply to be on programme). Suddenly there was an opportunity to get Something Ventured to Prague, Kino Svetozor agreed, and done deal. Simple.

So we're happy to invite you to the Czech premiere and probably the only screening of the latest startup film Something Ventured (released at SXSW 2011).

Film: Something Ventured
When: Jan 26, 8:30 pm
Where: Kino Svetozor, Vodickova 41, Prague
Tickets: go to Kino Svetozor web to book, or in person to Kino Svetozor

Film tells the story of the creation of an industry that went on to become the single greatest engine of innovation and economic growth in the 20th century. It is told by the visionary risk-takers who dared to make it happen…Tom Perkins, Don Valentine, Arthur Rock, Dick Kramlich and others. The film also includes some of our finest entrepreneurs sharing how they worked with these venture capitalists to grow world-class companies like Intel, Apple, Cisco, Atari, Genentech, Tandem and others. More at IMDB.

Film is in English without Czech subtitles.

Discussion will follow: Risk, Reward and the Original VCs, moderated by Peter Zaboji (European Entrepreneurship Foundation), Ondrej Bartos (Credo Ventures) and others.

Gonna be an interesting evening. 350 geeks and venture capitalist, one time, one cinema. Something Ventured.

Thank you

First of all we want to thank to European Entrepreneurship Foundation, Credo Ventures, CVCA and Kino Svetozor. Startup.Lupa.cz, Mediar.cz and Tyinternety.cz supports the screening as media partners.

24/11 Proactify získali seed investici

Proactify vyvíjí hezký nástroj pro e-shopy, nejlepší přirovnání je "takové to okno na Amazonu s doporučením, kupte si taky". Proactify to mají propracované, sledují zákazníky e-shopů a podle jejich zájmu jim doporučují, co dalšího by se jim mohlo líbit.

Proactify založili Jiří Kopsa a Josef Holý, kterým nyní seed investicí 40 tisíci EUR pomůže v rozjezdu Jan Barta.

04/11 Rozhovor se šéfem Seedcampu

Před 14 dny jsme pomáhali se Seedcampem, při kterém Byznyspark vedl následující rozhovor s Carlosem Eduardem Espinalem (Tw, blog), partnerem Seedcampu. Carlos byl do loňského roku ve fondu Doughty Hanson, nyní spolu s Reshmou Sohoni vede Seedcamp.

27/10 Mini Seedcamp Prague má dva vítěze

Překvapivým rozhodnutím vyvrcholil Mini Seedcamp Prague, soutěž 19 evropských startupů, kteří se 20. října setkali v Praze s 80 mentory - investory a podnikateli z celé Evropy.

Seedcamp, nejoceňovanější evropský akcelerátor, si dal po pražském setkání s vyhlášením vítězů na čas. Důvodem bylo slouhé rozhodovaní o vítězi, které nakonec skončilo remízou 2 projektů, kterým byla nabídnuta investice:

1. Nizozemský Milk.ly - služba, která pomáhá prodávat a nakupovat lidem v blízkém okolí

2. Estonský Qminder - systím pro "fronty", mobilní aplikace pro organizaci čekajících, nahrazující papírové lístky a nutnost sedět na místě

Mini Seedcampu se zúčastnili i dva české projekty - Brand Embassy a Universator, se kterými udělaly rozhovory Tyinternety. Blížší shrnutí Seedcampu na blogu.

23/09 Roztočte svou firmu. Seedcamp jede do Prahy

Pro spoustu internetových a mobilních startupů je velkým problémem dosáhnout pozice hvězdy – firmy, o které se píše, novináři sami volají a investoři sami žádají o schůzky. Obrovskou příležitost pro mnohé zakladatele přináší Seedcamp, nejoceňovanější evropský akcelerátor, který již podruhé zavítá do Prahy - 20. října na Mini Seedcamp Prague.Mini Seedcamp Prague 2011

O co jde

Seedcamp je nejvlivnější evropský akcelerátor, který pomáhá v rozjezdu a investicích desítkám firem z celé Evropy. Během jednoho roku dělá „roadshow“ po 9 městech (Evropa plus nově New York City a Tel Aviv) – na každém z 9 Mini Seedcampů soutěží po 20 vybraných firmách o přízeň 80 mentorů, zakladatelů úspěšných firem a investorů, kteří s nimi probírají plány celý den a vybírají nejlepší.

Proč
Mini Seedcamp je obrovskou příležitostí potkat na jednom místě investory z celé Evropy a desítky zakladatelů, kteří řeší podobné otázky jako vy. Získáte zpětnou vazbu, ověření business plánu, desítky kontaktů. A pokud zvítězíte a postoupíte na londýnský Seedcamp Week, můžete se dostat až k investici Seedcampu, nebo stovek investorů na něj navázaných.

Pro koho
Znáte NejŘemeslníci.cz, nebo Nelso? Tyto dvě české firmy patřily mezi pětici vítězů loňského pražského Mini Seedcampu, kterým se podařilo uspět v soutěži 19 evropských a jedné indické firmy. Mini Seedcamp je zejména pro internetové, mobilní a softwarové firmy, které míří do zahraničí, mají nový produkt nebo službu a promyšlený business model.

Kdo tam bude
Čekejte pořádnou konkurenci. Ke 20.9. bylo přihlášeno již několik stovek firem z 21 zemí, nejvzdálenější z Nového Zélandu a USA. Mezi 80 mentory budou lidé z fondu Index Ventures (investor do Skype nebo Last.fm), Google nebo přední čeští podnikatelé. Počítejte, že Mini Seedcamp je celý v angličtině a pouze pro zvané. Večer však bude příležitost potkat mentory při otevřeném networkingu.

Co udělat
Přihlášky jsou do půlnoci 28.9. (přesně, ani o minutu víc). Samotné vyplnění přihlášky vám pomůže promyslet, jak svou firmu prezentovat. Seedcamp oceňuje účast předních lokálních firem, takže pokud máte přelomovou službu, chyťte se příležitosti a roztočte svou firmu!

16/09 Finance jako poker? Workshop 21.9.

Finance jako poker? Aneb hravý návod pro přežití vašeho startupu

Jaroslav Trojan, Venture Analytik, Credo Ventures (web, twitter, facebook)

25/08 Přehled top 5 podzimních soutěží pro startupy

Podzim přinese více soutěží a přehlídek webových služeb, mobilních aplikací a jiných udělátek, než bylo obvyklé. Podívejte se na soutěže, o kterých byste měli uvažovat.

Přehled soutěží

• - AppParade - září, Brno
• - WebExpo Startup Show - září, Praha
• - Startup Challenge - říjen, Vídeň
• - Mini Seedcamp Prague - říjen, Praha
• - Startup roku - listopad, Praha

Celý článek na blogu TechSquare

17/08 Novým klientem je Onmeco

10/08 TechSquare se podílí na projektu Život nápadům

02/06 eMan získal ocenění Aplikace roku v kategorii Peníze a nakupování

eMani se svojí aplikací POJIŠŤOVNA (pomoc při nehodě) včera na slavnostním vyhlášení Mobilní aplikace roku 2011 zvítězili v kategorii Peníze a nakupování. Aplikaci doporučujeme instalovat každému zákazníkovi ČP, ale používat co nejméně.

17/05 Credo Ventures announced another interesting investment

A premier Central European venture capital firm, Credo Ventures today announced that it has closed a first round of financing in Klick2Contact, a European provider of Live Help services for e-commerce websites. The investment proceeds will be used to support the company’s growth initiatives, continue to enhance its product offering, and strengthen sales activities in UK, Western Europe and CEE. Klick2Contact offers an innovative hosted - suite of applications designed specifically for e-commerce retailers to help them interact with customers in real-time, decrease website abandonment, and increase sales conversions. According to Credo Ventures Klick2Contact products have a potencial to cause a revolution at the European e-commerce market.

11/05 The third new client - Lonely Sock

We have another new client with a little nontraditional name - Lonely Sock. Lonely Sock is an ambitious game studio specialized in mobile social games development. The aim of the young company, founded in april 2011, is to develop the top quality Android games based on a freemium model. Lonely Sock Games aim at the international markets, but they don´t forget where are they from and their first product will contain czech localization. Lonely Sock all-star team is composed from the game business veterans plentifully experienced from Disney Mobile, Electronic Arts and a lot of more global brands. Their first product will be opened up very soon. If you want to know more, follow our website or Lonely Sock twitter twitter

03/05 We have the second client - young mobile developer

The second company moving to TechSquare is a young but already successfull team of eMan. eMan is specialized in the field of mobile communication and web 2.0. from the very begining of its existence. Their biggest success has been the aplication “POJISTOVNA” (“Insurance company”), providing the effective help after an accident enabled the fast reporting and easy liquidation, developed for Ceska pojistovna, a.s.

21/04 The first TechSquare resident Credo Ventures

Our first client and also the first TechSquare resident is venture capital company Credo Ventures. Its most important project is a creation of the first CEE venture capital fund called Credo Ventures Stage 1.The fund, founded in 2010, is prepared to invest about 1milion euro into the young start-ups mostly from IT and mobile technologies.

21/03 TechSquare has its own address

The most suitable place for the new project has been chosen after quite a long period of market searching, finding and negotiating localities . New TechSquare offices went through quite an extensive reconstruction. Architectural design was designed by young innovative architects from DOT Architects and thoughtfully incorporates open space with individual offices to be suitable and comfortable for all the demands which modern offices can have.

And Where do you find us? Lomnickeho 1705/7, Prague 4, in modern building Pankrac House, 100 m from metro station C, Prazskeho povstani, 10 minutes form the city centre and the highway D1.

01/03 How did TechSquare start?

TechSquare Ltd., was founded during 2010 by 2 founders, Nikola Rafaj and Petra Hubacova. The incentive of the idea and also the company birth was previous common Petra and Nikola´s operation in TUESDAY Business Network, where they were meeting the entrepreneurs and owners of successful IT and technological companies for the past five years. And they heard so many times from them about the same problems all the time - their growth is braked by never ending solving of operation routine and lack of sources. That is one of the main reasons why Petra and Nikola decided to create, after the fashion of similar project in Europe and USA, project of business accelerator , which means to concentrate 10-15 small companies or startups at one adress, and to grant them a rear for the fast growth and at the same time to create a interesting innovative social space.

The accelerator concept is unique in Czech republic, it´s not only about the offices and the office place, but more about granting the much more advantages to the accelerator´s project. The inspiraton of course has come from abroad, the most succesful projects with similar character are american Plug´n´Play or Y Combinator.