Credo Week: Aftermath

Posted on September 12, 2011 by David McKenzie | Leave a comment

At the beginning of the summer, our team started to discuss the possibility of having an extended Open House event, where we would meet with entrepreneurs and start-ups in their home cities, across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We got the idea from a few US-based venture capital firms that held Open House events in London last year. Unexpectedly, those firms got stuck in London due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, one of Iceland’s active volcanoes, in April 2010. The eruption prevented them from flying back to the US so they decided to use their prolonged stay in London and meet with entrepreneurs.

We decided to coin the prospective event “Credo Week.” And although we were confident we would pull this event off it was hard to predict if it would go as we envisioned, especially since we had roughly one month to plan. Technically the event would be a success if we were able to get the word out and get several people to attend. And of course, be present ourselves. The bar was set low and we didn’t believe we would be fortunate to find attractive opportunities to add to our active pipeline for further evaluation.

After reviewing a majority of the major cities in the CEE region we decided to select Ljubljana, Bratislava, Budapest and Zagreb, given their proximity to Prague, our home city, and three-day schedule for Credo Week. We were fortunate enough to quickly connect with several individuals and organizations in those cities early in the planning process.

Credo Week was a success by many measures including the quality of the start-ups, press involvement and the sheer number of participants. We estimated that each city, on average, would have between 10 and 15 participants. During the three-day, four-city event we met significantly more. Over 150 people and approximately 80 companies attended Credo Week. While it’s too early to say we’ll make any investments, over 20 companies will be contacted for more information.

We’re really looking forward to future events and we thank all the co-organizers and participants in making our inaugural Credo Week a success.