Talk by Matej Ftacnik, Co-Founder - The Spot (SK), at Stanford on Feb 23 2015, in our session on 'Slovakia & Latvia :: Accelerators & Infographics Startups'. Website: http://www.StanfordEuropreneurs.org YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/StanfordEuropreneurs Twitter: @Europreneurs

1. Slovak Startup Ecosystem
Matej Ftacnik, co-founder The Spot Booster
@ftacnik
European Entrepreneurship & Innovation @ Stanford Engineering
23rd Feb 2015

2. 2
Heart of Europe
Member
of
EU
since
2004
- 5.5M Citizens
- SK GDP - $94B (2012)
- IBM rev.– $99B (2013)
Largest car producers per capita

3. Bratislava
500k
popula8on

4. The Spot – Booster
NGO
Education
Networking
Mentorship
Incubator/Accelerator
EIR’s / Mentors
Funding
Corp. partnerships
Jumpstar8ng
innova8on
in
Slovakia
2012
2014

5. Value
Proposition
World-class 450 mentors and initial seed financing
of up to 30K with follow-up funding of 30-250K.
Focus
Data, cloud services, analytics, transactional
technologies, fintech and e-commerce, B2B
technologies, location-based services, and security
software
Financing
Backed by private investors and the European
Commission
Estonia Czech Republic Slovakia Hungary Lithuania

6. Life at The Spot
Workshops,
events,
mentorship

8. From Engineering to Bizdev
A
short
bio
Companies Awards / CommunityNGO

9. Startup ingredients
Solving
the
missing
pieces
to
make
the
ecosystem
excel
Business Talent
Lack of international
experience / schooling
Rare ingredients Abundant ingredients
Venture Capital
Availability of capital to
large numbers of startups
Government Support
Signs of commitment to support
the startup ecosystem
Top Engineers
Low volumes but high-quality
talent coming out of schools
Serial Entrepreneurs
Small number of exits forces
entrepreneurs to stay
with one company
Test Market
National market too small
to be final market

10. Slovak success stories
Who
already
made
it
or
is
on
it’s
way
there
Cyber Security
100M+ Customers
Mobile Navigation
80M Users
Game Developers
25M+ Gamers
Mobile Web Creator
Exit to godaddy.com

11. Aeromobil.com
A
flying
car

12. Aeromobil.com
A
flying
car

13. Booster - after first 6 months
Early
success
signals
from
porHolio
companies
500 000 EUR
Raised seed funding
FIT
500 000 EUR
Raised seed funding
Asseco CE
March
2014
batch:
Invento SIGNEE

14. Slovak startup ecosystem
A
brief
overview
Slovak President @ Stanford
Governments
commitment
to
support
startups
John L. Hennessy
Stanford President
Andrej Kiska
Slovak President

15. Slovak startup ecosystem
A
brief
overview
Venture Capital Community University Government

16. Slovak startup ecosystem
A
brief
overview
Corporate Associations Inc. / Acc. Mature Startups

17. Bridging into the Valley
Connec8ng
the
two
ecosystems
Mentors, experts, US entrepreneurs
Getting people from Silicon Valley excited to come to Slovakia and broaden the knowledge
pool of local startups.
Market access/discovery
Allowing more Slovak startups to experience Silicon Valley. Establishing a “Slovak house”
that fosters relationships and acts as a bridge.
Access to later stage capital
Making it easier for high-potential Slovak startups to be considered for Series A or later
stage funding from SV investors.
Scouting innovation
Enabling CEE corporates to scout and partner with SV startups making them more
innovative. Opening a new market for those startups.

18. Get in touch
Matej Ftáčnik
ftacnik@thespot.sk
+421 911 278 426
@ftacnik
18