Founders of Slevomat, DameJidlo, and CZC.cz Invest In StartupYard 2015 Program

StartupYard is pleased to announce that Josef Matějka, founder of CZC.cz, and Slevomat founder Tomáš Čupr’s Bizthusiasm investment company have come on board as investors in StartupYard 2015.

They join Credo Ventures, Michal Illich, and Petr Ocásek, as backers of the 2015 startup cohort. Both Matějka and Čupr have taken an active role in this cohort since the end of 2014, as members of the selection committee. They helped reduce a pool of over 200 applications to just 7 startups, the names of which will be announced publicly next week.

Josef Matějka is the founder of CZC.cz, the Czech Republic’s 2nd leading electronics and IT equipment e-retailer. He expressed his hope to us this week that tech founders of his generation will begin to give back to the Czech startup ecosystem: “Investment in the Czech Startup scene is important, because it supports a creative environment, and the realization of good ideas.” Čupr also expressed the need to give back: “Globally and locally competitive and successful Czech startups benefit all of us,” he said.

Čupr has been involved in one way or another with StartupYard since before his acquisition of DameJidlo’s predecessor, PizzaTime, from the StartupYard 2012 cohort. Čupr transformed that company into a major success, selling it earlier this year to German delivery giant DeliveryHero. Čupr bring years of experience in e-commerce to StartupYard’s mentorship program, having also founded Slevomat, the highly popular Czech coupon platform, and invested in Rohlik.cz, the newly redesigned Czech grocery delivery service.

Čupr is enthusiastic about the StartupYard program. He said this week, via email: “I’ve been following StartupYard for several years, and each year their work has been better and better. I believe in the experience and abilities of their team.”

StartupYard Managing Director Cedric Maloux was extremely pleased with the development, saying: “It’s fantastic to see successful local entrepreneurs stepping up to support this ecosystem, without being averse to risk. The Czech Republic needs more role models like Čupr and Matějka to inspire and support the next generation of Czech tech founders.”

StartupYard’s 2015 cohort will publicly present themselves for the first time at StartupYard Demo Day, on May 28th of this year, in Prague. A press release detailing their names and areas of business will be released next week.