After several months of preparations, Rockaway Capital Investment Group has completed all formal steps to launch a new fund dedicated purely to blockchain projects. One of the first investors in the new Rockaway Blockchain Fund is TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. The fund aims to raise $100 million over the next two years and become the largest blockchain fund in Europe.
The venture division of Jakub Havrlant’s investment group Rockaway has recently completed the sale of its stake in the Hamburg-based start-up Voya. Volkswagen Financial Services from the Volkswagen Group has become the new owner of the German start-up, which provides a comprehensive digital solution to business travel.
The Kaufland grocery chain is joining forces with on-line supermarket Košík.cz. Through this alliance, Košík will offer selected Kaufland brand products for the very first time. Košík recently added new services, allowing orders from households throughout the Czech Republic. Košík is thus adding more high-quality and available groceries to its portfolio.
Order using your phone right at the table. Safely and comfortably. Also pay from your seat when you want to leave, without having to flag down a waiter. This is another part of the Restaurant of the Future concept that is being introduced by Storyous. You can already try it out today in the Červený Jelen restaurant in Prague. During the time of the global pandemic, it also offers the ability to order food without the need to touch a menu that could collect viruses or bacteria.
On line supermarket Košík.cz has given itself a gift for its fifth birthday. Starting today, it is broadening its offering significantly, and is launching countrywide delivery from its new warehouse. Customers hitherto not covered by Košík’s deliveries can now order 1700 kinds of non-perishable groceries with next-day delivery to any address, right to their doorstep. In addition, the territory where Košík will deliver its entire assortment will also expand to include towns in North Bohemia. This fundamental change is also accompanied by re branding.
Jakub Havrlant’s investment group has announced a key addition to its team. Milan Vašina, a former CEO of T-Mobile Czech Republic and Slovak Telekom with more than 20 years of experience in telecommunications and ICT, is joining Rockaway as Senior Advisor at the beginning of April. The newly created role has two objectives: to help selected portfolio companies with their business strategy and to promote development of managerial talent across the group.
Olda Bajer, CEO of the MALL Group, was interviewed on-line by Jiří Rostecký from the Mladý podnikatel [Young Entrepreneur] server. Is Mall experiencing a crisis? How did it prepare for this situation? What is the future of e-commerce and what role will marketplace platforms play? The video answers all these questions, and in the article we’ve selected key ideas for you.
The next couple of weeks may ravage the Czech restaurant industry. Some restaurants have already closed entirely, while others are reporting only a fraction of former revenues. It is no exaggeration to say that once the quarantine is lifted we won’t have anywhere to go for a beer and social culture in the Czech Republic will be hit hard. At Storyous, however, we’re not giving up. And you can help too.
Czech travel agencies, hotels and tourist centres are calling on Prime Minister Andrej Babiš to invite them to the negotiating table. Their objective is to save the jobs of thousands of people and revive the travel industry in the Czech Republic. The travel agency Invia initiated the drafting of open letter received by the prime minister today. Invia is already involved in the efforts to resolve the situation caused by the spread of Covid-19, as it has lent its call centre to the government and the City of Prague and is retraining its employees to operate two information lines to help seniors, as well as the disabled and people in quarantine.
The impact of anti-coronavirus measures is beginning to be reflected more substantially in the real estate market. For example, Bezrealitky.cz, the largest portal for selling and renting properties without an intermediary, reports a significant increase in the number of apartments offered for rent in Prague. Properties that had previously been intended for short-term rental have been added to the offer of real estate on the portal as owners are seeking new ways to increase their value following the outflow of tourists. The portal also reports an increase in concluded sales in the capital and the Central Bohemia region.
The Czech book market has been at a standstill over the past two weeks. This is due mainly to the government’s decision to close most stores, including bookstores, which was unavoidable in light of the novel coronavirus epidemic. Of course, everyone understands the necessity of this and agrees with the measures implemented by the government.
On the one hand, hundreds of thousands of quarantined households; on the other hand, gastronomic operations that are currently dependent on food delivery and have millions of korunas in unprocessed stock. Therefore, the online supermarket Košík.cz has launched a new platform called “Hotovky Košík”, which will enable people to order ready-to-eat meals with home delivery provided by DoDo couriers. With respect to the situation, meals made with first-class ingredients will be sold and distributed at cost so that families can afford to buy multiple portions and, among other things, volunteers will be used for deliveries. Furthermore, customers themselves will decide on the menu, which will change every week.
The book-publishing holding company Euromedia, which includes, for example, the Luxor bookstore chain and the Knizni klub publishing house, is launching registration of preschools and individuals who are looking after the children of doctors and nurses, to whom it will send books and audiobooks. Even though Euromedia had to close bookstores due to the current situation and has had to almost fully suspend its distribution and publishing operations, it is striving to provide books from its own production where they will help the most. In addition to that, the company is working on a contactless delivery system so that it will be prepared to satisfy a new wave of demand during the quarantine and thus mitigate its current loss.
Private companies are facing a struggle with the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on their business. The travel agency Invia.cz, which directly and indirectly employs a total of 2,100 people throughout the country, responded immediately to the decline in sales and, at the same time, is providing assistance in the current crisis situation. Employees of its call centre are manning two information lines that serve to help seniors, disabled people and people under quarantine.
A dozen of companies with pan-European operations as well as technology start-ups from the Rockaway portfolio are working at maximum capacity as the teams are busy ensuring health and safety of its thousands of employees while maintaining the quality of services for its customers. Although some of the companies must have halted their services due to the declared state of emergency and quarantine, they are coming up with new alternatives business models or providing their capacities for projects aimed at assisting vulnerable people.
