After 4 years of acting as a family office, Czech Republic’s ZAKA VC, in July 2024 announced the creation of their first VC fund. This decision was influenced by increasing demand for venture capital as well as need of external investors to co-invest alongside ZAKA.
ZAKA VC was founded by serial entrepreneur Jan Kasper and Peter Zálešák in 2020. As a family office, they invested private money into pre-seed and seed startups, and put together a legacy portfolio of over 55 startups.
Kasper and Zálešák have built and co-own over 60 companies, with a turnover exceeding €1.4B in multiple sectors like retail, media, mobility, energy, development, agro, leisure and hospitality. This experience helped them to provide for their portfolio startups not just money but active support during their entrepreneurial journey.
Previously, they primarily focused on the CEE market but over time, ZAKA VC expanded its investment presence. We took the opportunity to discuss some of the reasons behind this decision…
Reaching outside the region
“We started as a classic general agnostic investor,” explains Jan Kasper; that is, an investor who does not advocate only one style of investing. “We started investing in 2020. First in the Czech and Slovak markets, over time we also found ourselves in the Baltics, German-speaking countries, the USA and the United Kingdom.
The newly setup VC fund aims to invest in pre-seed and seed-staged startups not just across Europe but in USA as well, acting as a co-investor. Their aim now is to explore and fund the European diaspora in US, US-based teams, or CEE-based teams with the ambition to scale to the US.
The main focus is on B2B software, looking for projects that deal with health technologies, biotech, deeptech, and cybersecurity.
Since 2020, they have invested in 59 startups in total, with an average investment of €300k thousand.
“At the same time, we have one key condition – the startup in which we will invest must have global ambitions and strive to succeed in the American market as well.”
Investing elsewhere helps “at home”
There are many factors influencing VCs’ decision to invest cross-border, sometimes the cons outweighing the pros. It is no secret regulatory landscape in Europe often does not support cross-border investments effectively. Also, if you don’t have any local expertise, presence and network in the target market – the risks get higher, for US especially.
So its reasonable that for many local VCs cross-border investments are still a big bite to swallow. Although, after asking Kasper about ZAKA’s geographical switch, it seems this was only natural for them.
“We are a European-based VC company aiming to help European founders to succeed globally. In order to do that, we need to be active not only in Europe, but also on the US market – which is why we are establishing an office in Silicon Valley”, he points.
“This network expansion shall serve as a bridge and source of relevant connections for the European founders.”
Newest additions to the portfolio: German ExoMatter and Spanish Webel
ZAKA Venture Capital has recently invested in two promising European startups, ExoMatter and Webel, as part of its ongoing strategy to support innovative companies in both deep tech and consumer services. These investments reflect ZAKA’s growing portfolio and its interest in ventures with potential for wide-reaching impact across various sectors and geographies.
ZAKA VC joined a €1.7 million pre-seed round for ExoMatter, a German startup using AI to speed up materials R&D for sustainable innovations. ExoMatter’s platform helps industries like aerospace and electronics develop eco-friendly materials more efficiently than traditional methods.
This investment, alongside other major investors like Vanagon VC (lead) and BayernKapital, aligns with ZAKA’s interest in technology-driven solutions that address both industry needs and environmental challenges.
Webel, a Spanish platform for booking at-home services, raised €1.4 million in its latest funding round, marking its first international expansion. Backed by ZAKA VC along with leading investor, Palo Alto-based Goodwater Capital, Webel has established a stable position in the Spanish market across 20 cities and is now entering London.
The platform offers users a convenient way to access a range of services, from home maintenance and cleaning to childcare and personal training. Over the past year, the platform’s services have grown by 650%, successfully done more than 300,000 transactions, from which 230K are from 2024.
