News

SEC Technologies, having gained the trust of the Venture to Future Fund (VFF) and our platform investors in February 2021, launched a new research and development center in early November. It was opened in Liptovský Mikuláš by the Minister of Defense of the Slovak Republic, Jaroslav Naď. The Slovak technology company will manufacture state-of-the-art Falcon 4G laser equipment to protect against chemical and biological threats.

Crowdberry investors joined developer KLM Real Estate, tenant Slovak Parcel Service, general contractor HSF System SK and financing bank Tatra banka to help celebrate the opening of the Trnava Logistics Center – one of the first industrial developments to involve smaller individual investors.

Crowdberry is in the process of organizing its first Crowdberry Forum – a virtual conference under the theme, “Capital is more than just money”, to be held on 23 November. The influence of growth capital on the value of companies will be discussed by company founders, entrepreneurs and investors. The conference will be available for viewing online.

Crowdberry, which manages two growth capital funds in addition to its online investment platform, received an investment of nearly €1.5 million to develop and open the market further. The objective is to further expand the possibilities of financing for Czech and Slovak companies as well as real estate, while at the same time provide investors with a wide range of opportunities to increase their capital.

Refresher.sk was created as a graduation project of classmates Gábor Boros and Filip Vajda. Their project didn’t make much sense to people at the beginning, but today their media portal is read by more than 3 million people every month in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It provides young people with information on social issues and topics not normally covered by the mainstream press, and excels at putting difficult subjects into context. It also guides the creation of online content for creators and advertisers. Simply put, Refresher is the place where Generations Y and Z go for information. Now the company is looking for partners and financing for expansion – and you can be part of that as a co-owner.

In September, 40 Crowdberry investors, alongside the CB Growth ONE investment fund, invested in Slovak biotechnological company Glycanostics, providing capital worth €1 million. Glycanostics will now receive an additional €2 million from the European Council, becoming only the third Slovak company, after MultiplexDX and Sensoneo, to have received such a European Innovation Council grant.

The main objective of investing has always been the appreciation of capital. Still, more and more people are focusing on philanthropy as well. What if you could combine these two ideas? What if you could invest in biotechnology companies, sustainable housing or a smart city product? This is exactly what Crowdberry enables its investors to do. Take a look at seven examples of companies that have used our investment platform to obtain financing and, as a result, are changing their field, their market and sometimes even the world.

The last two years have taught us many things, among them the popularity of retail parks. Why are they so popular with customers and, therefore, with retailers and investors? Let’s take a closer look.

An alternative real estate segment, already well known in the West, is only now just emerging in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Dúbravská Oáza, a facility for senior citizens and patients with Alzheimer’s disease, represents the flagship of this new type of real estate investment. Crowdberry investors now have the opportunity to be among the first in this market and to help this particular property in its expansion plans, while also showing the way forward for society as a whole.

Logistics developments like that for Slovak Parcel Service are opening up to individual investors. Trnava’s largest business zone is expanding to include a distribution hall for fast package processing. Slovak developer KLM real estate is building it for its client Slovak Parcel Service, the largest courier company in Slovakia. 

The Slovak brand Isadore is embarking on its next phase. The cycling apparel and accessories maker is opening the Isadore Community Hub on the renovated premises of the historical Pradiareň 1900 building in Bratislava.

Whereas a few decades ago the word “ecology” was a cause for laughter and people with disabilities were confined to special schools, today no one is surprised if you bring your own cup to a café and the coffee is made by a barista with Down’s syndrome. We have made great progress as a society, but we are not done yet. Social responsibility and sustainability have become increasingly important to more and more people, as well as a way for companies to maintain their competitiveness, recruit new talent and, primarily, to make the world a better place for us and future generations. The Slovak firm SmartHead is responding to the challenges and opportunities this creates for companies.

Non-fungible tokens (NFT) are the hottest new digital phenomenon. By the end of 2020, the market for NFTs, or unique digital objects, had risen 825% from 2018. The market is still young, though, and the world is just beginning to discover all the ways that NFTs – or nifties as they are known colloquially – can be used.

Slovakia’s Artzenal is recording reality with absolute precision and taking it into the digital world. It is making otherwise inaccessible experiences available to everyone, such as looking inside a locomotive, sitting in a racing car or seeing cultural monuments down to the finest detail. But this digitisation of physical objects is also increasingly being used in marketing, tourism and the entertainment industry.

Crowdberry has its own golf ambassador! Investment manager Branislav Hóz is ready to update everyone on the newest investment opportunities straight from the greens. Our investors can now seize the opportunity to combine business with pleasure, enjoy the game, and get to know an investment campaign from the inside out.

Whereas in the past, fashion trends were set by designers at their own shows, today the opposite is true – customers themselves determine what they expect from fashion. Fast fashion is increasingly becoming the target of criticism, as people expect sustainability, quality and a perfect shopping experience across channels. If they want to survive, and better yet prosper, both major and small fashion-industry players must respond accordingly. And those brands that have long played a role in shaping current trends or are quick to adopt them represent interesting investment potential.

On June 21, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Slovakia to give the EU’s stamp of approval for Slovakia’s recovery plan to Prime Minister Eduard Heger. As part of her trip, President von der Leyen also met with innovative Slovak startups focusing on green solutions and biomedicine.

Following the successful launch of the FlexDog service in the Czech Republic in March, the specialised sneaker platform is coming to Slovakia. This expansion is taking place also thanks to the €4 million investment, provided to Footshop by Crowdberry investors last year.

Slovak company Boataround, among the world's leading online boat-rental reservation portals, received growth investment worth €1.2 million from investors on the Crowdberry investment platform and a fund managed by CB Investment Management. The investment will help Boataround move into new markets and paves the way for international Series A financing, as the company looks to become the global leader in its segment.

Jakub Veselský and Jan Bouška are friends who have fashion in common. They pride themselves on selling authentic and, above all, sustainable clothing and accessories via their Freshlabels shop. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, they unfortunately had to make cuts and let some people go, but they say that in the end it resulted in the streamlining of their business. They are planning to expand to Western European countries – they started with Germany and want to conquer other markets thanks to funding they have received via the Crowdberry investment platform.

Real estate is an ideal way to diversify one’s portfolio today. Capital invested in real estate brings not only interesting opportunities for appreciation, but also protection against inflation. How did industrial real estate, retail parks, residential development and construction of housing for seniors perform last year and why is capital distribution important? Find out in this next instalment of our Investing in Real Estate series.

Fifteen years ago, in front of one of their houses, two young entrepreneurs decided to start importing into the Czech Republic brand-name clothing they thought was lacking here.

After launching the German version of its e-shop last year, Freshlabels is planning to continue its incremental expansion into Western Europe.

Slovak company nettle.ai, which is focused on solutions in the area of conversational technologies using artificial intelligence, received a significant investment in the volume of €1 million from Crowdberry investors and the Venture to Future Fund (VFF) investment fund.

SEC Technologies, inventor of a laser-based technology that can detect, identify and quantify chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals over long distances, has successfully raised €3 million in funding from Crowdberry and Venture to Future Fund (VFF).

Footshop announced the acquisition of its competitor Queens at the beginning of 2021 – a deal made possible thanks in part to funding obtained from a Crowdberry investment campaign in 2020. Now, investors have another opportunity to invest in the athletic-footwear giant during its next growth phase.

Real estate should be a standard part of any investor’s portfolio, in which several segments with various levels of risk should be combined, says Peter Bečár, partner at Crowdberry.

The Isadore campaign aired during the Tour de France and financed by Crowdberry investors helped lift the brand’s sales by 250%, tripling the number of its customers. Traffic in the brand’s e-shop nearly tripled as well. Moreover, the campaign was recognized for its creative concept and successful implementation. 

The biggest potential for growth can be seen in sectors that profit from the dynamic in e-commerce. In the realm of alternative investments, there is a focus on those that bring innovations or improve the quality of customer-service as well as suppliers.

isklad provides investors with the opportunity to profit from the growth in the e-commerce market. isklad, as a provider of logistics infrastructure for a large number of e-shops, can profit from their collective growth as well as from the influx of new clients. These can be integrated efficiently thanks to isklad’s original and optimized software and its quality team. Thanks to its state-of-the-art technology, isklad can easily scale its product and thus serve thousands of small and large e-shops, thereby achieving a leading position in the Central European region.