Startup of the Semester at VSE Knows its Winners. First Place Goes to CEMS Students

On Tuesday, December 15th, a pilot year of the annual VSE startup competition took place. Student teams competed for a scholarship of 40,000 CZK to support innovative entrepreneurship. A total of eight teams from the minor specialization Entrepreneurship, the VSE Business Accelerator xPORT and the CEMS courses Entrepreneurship and New Business Venturing and IT in Entrepreneurship competed for the Startup of the Semester 2020 title.

The four-member jury was represented by academia and the investing community. The Reflex Capital venture fund was represented by Vladimíra Josefiová, who, among other things, also acts as the CFO of the Spaceti startup founded by Max Verteletskyi, a CEMS alumnus. The jury also included the owner of TCCM and business angel Kamil Vacek. He was the first investor of the successful portal bezrealitky.cz, which was also established at the Prague University of Economics and Business. The academic sphere was represented by the head of the Department of Business and the vice-dean for science and research at FBA Prof. Martin Lukeš. The xPORT accelerator was represented by Jakub Stránský – an experienced mentor and founder of the Techambition startup.

The teams delivered a seven-minute online presentation in the “startup pitch” format and a subsequent discussion with the jury, which did not have an easy decision, because already in this “trial” year, interesting projects were presented. The assumption that VSE students have innovative ideas and a desire to start their own business has been confirmed.

This year’s winner was the UniSearch project of CEMS students Sven Klijer, Magnus Lütt and Peter Bogdanov, which offers an effective search for MBA and Master in Management study programs. The goal of UniSearch is to find an ideal match between the preferences of the student and the university’s offer. The Unisearch team won the jury with a sophisticated concept and innovations in the form of additional services.

The third and second place was taken by projects of students of the minor specialization Business. Tomáš Pejš and his Glasino.cz project came in third place – a portal focused on the development of the Czech glass industry and data-oriented product development. The second place belongs to the nabyte.cz project. Its authors, Ondřej Cvešpr and Jan Drha, want to change the roommate market by connecting users based on similar characteristics and interests.

The organizing team of the Startup of the Semester is working on the preparation of the competition for the summer semester. For current information, follow the facebook page of the Department of Business.