PRAGUE, Czech Republic – On September 26, the Angel Investor Association organized the first match-making forum in the Czech Republic for private investors (so-called “business angels”) and high-growth entrepreneurs. Four such selected entrepreneurs had the opportunity to present their ventures to an audience of around forty angels, investment fund representatives, business incubator managers and fellow entrepreneurs. Guests included the 2004 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Miroslav Řihák, Nicolas Boissin of BKS Capital, and business angels Michael Prokop and Silke Horáková.
The forum, held at Kines on Na Příkopě street 9, was held under the aegis of the European EASY project, which aims at bringing together investors and entrepreneurs from across the EU, as was pointed out by AIA’s Michal Kohoutek in his introductory note. This two-year cross-border project includes six investment forums in Europe’s main capitals. AIA’s forum followed as a logical consequence of the 2006 European Business Angel Network annual conference, which AIA organized in Prague in April last year to raise awareness about angel investing in the Czech Republic.
The AIA forum started with a presentation entitled “Keys to a Successful Business Angel Investment” by Mrs Modwenna Rees-Mogg, editor in chief of VCR Directory, a database of British venture capital and private equity investors, as well as of Angel News, a free commercial news service for early stage funded companies. Mrs Rees-Mogg opened with an overview of the types of angel investors, ranging from the angels looking for an intriguing job in the investee company, to the “passive portfolio builders”. Then she followed up with ten specific steps on how optimize the investment so as to minimize risks – tips included the formula to calculate the amount to invest based on your free assets, as well as ideas on how to source a quality deal flow.
From left to right: Ministry of Foreign Affaires‘ Karel Žebrakovský, South Moravian Incubator’s Michal Kostka, CzechInvest’s Iva Jeglová and AIA investor Silke Horáková
From left to right, at the fore: Pilsen Business Information Centre’s Zbyněk Doležal, Pedersen and Partners‘ Michael Nassir and the 2004 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Miroslav Řihák of Anect
The following two speakers were Helena Kopalová of the Prague School of Economics, and Michal Kostka, of the South Moravian Innovation Centre. Mrs Kopalová talked about her experience at the 2007 July European Entrepreneurship Colloquium at Harvard Business School, while Mr Kostka presented the services his incubator offers to entrepreneurs. His presentation bore the title “How to Breed a Beginning Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year”, as Václav Muchna of Y Soft, the 2006 winner of the award, comes from the South Moravian Innovation Centre incubator.
At 5 pm the core of the program came – the four entrepreneurs, one after another, presented their entrepreneurial projects to the attending investors. First was Mr Daniel Zuth of ViDiTech, a Brno-based company producing vibrodiagnostical devices, which monitor – as the name reveals – the vibrations of costly machinery in order to prevent damage to them. After the presentation, a lively debate ensued with AIA investor Anthony Smith, who showed his interest in the proposal and enquired about the possibility of applying the ViDiTech system to wind turbines, given the advantageous ratio between their respective prices.
Second to present was Mr Václav Březina of BP Medical, also from Brno, a company growing algae in a closed system – the only one in Europe – and able to tailor their nutritional content to the customer’s needs. The purpose of the algae cultivation is to obtain biomass from which to extract nutritional supplements as well as to add to cosmetics. The liveliest business angel in the ensuing discussion this time was Silke Horáková, whose main interest focused on the company’s marketing strategy.
Third came SoggyMelon, a project of two American-born entrepreneurs living in Czech Republic’s Moravia region, Gary Keith and Glenn Weidner. In its first stage, the project is initially centred on the localization of casual online video games in the Central and Eastern Europe region, while at a second stage the development of own games is planned. Investor Michael Redgwell was the one seeing the highest potential in the project.
Finally, Indian-born Manna Justin of Foretee exposed his project. It consists of a tee time booking website, where players can see weather forecasts for each single golf course, and golf courses can post real time discounts in case of bad weather. Mr Justin has currently employees in India, the Czech Republic and the United States, while his target market currently is the United States only, given that it has by far the largest number of golf courses. Future plans include adding European courses to the database.
Journalist Adam Daniel Mezei of The Knowledge, a popular weekly podcast on Expats.cz with Prague’s expatriate business community leaders, interviewed the attending guests. The resulting piece will go online in the ensuing weeks.
Investors and entrepreneurs will continue their negotiations in the weeks ahead, and AIA will give information about their progress. If you wish to receive more information about the event, please contact Michal Kohoutek at Michal.Kohoutek@aia.cz.
Monday, November 19, 2007
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