Ondrej started his career as an entrepreneur when still in college. In the late 90s he co-founded and managed several companies in event management, consulting and IT. Relatively soon he’d realized that he doesn’t have what it takes to make a truly successful entrepreneur, so he turned consultant and angel investor. He also founded and ran the Czech chapter of the networking platform First Tuesday. After the decay of the global organization in the dot com bust, he morphed it into a member-based networking and knowledge platform. TUESDAY Business Network hence became a centrepiece of the early startup movement in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In 2004 – 2008 he served as Senior Investment Director with MCI Management, a VC & PE firm based out of Poland. In 2009 together with Jan started preparations for the launch of Credo which took place in late 2010 when it raised its pilot fund with 18 million euros. In 2009 he was one of the investors in the Czech edition of the TV show Dragons’ Den.
Currently Ondrej is focused on investments in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania, he also looks at Bulgaria. His main passion is finding outstanding founders and great talent, and helping them with guidance and advice. In his free time he likes spending time with his family, traveling, playing tennis (badly) and golf (terribly), generally trying to stay active. He also likes good reads and was arguably one of two first Kindle owners in the Czech Republic.
Ondrej has a degree from the University of Economics Prague and is a 2009 Eisenhower Fellow.
Tomáš was always fascinated by investing, analyzing individual companies and running his personal portfolio. This passion ultimately led him to join Credo Crossover in March 2024. Prior to that, he did an internship at RSJ Investments where he gained experience in the private markets space. Additionally, he was involved in running Econet, a student club that aims to connect and educate young people interested in economics. He is currently pursuing an economics & mathematics degree at IES, Charles University and in his free time he likes to do all kinds of sports, from calisthenics to skateboarding.
From a young age, Michal was always passionate about creating Internet-related products and discovering and understanding new different businesses. Prior to joining Credo Ventures in 2019 as an analyst, Michal led product development and marketing teams in an e-commerce company focused on CEE markets. Before that, he served as a digital marketing consultant in the same region. Besides that, Michal was always interested in finance and investing. He did his first investment as 16 years old and he's still an active individual investor.
Having gained experience in the financial audit department at PwC, Ales initially joined Credo Ventures in 2013 for an internship. He then spent a year working as industry analyst at Google Czech Republic only to return to Credo in 2015, where Ales currently focuses on the management of Credo’s investment funds as the company’s CFO. Ales graduated from Charles University in Prague where he studied international relations.
In his spare time, apart from spending some quality time with his infant son, Ales likes to play computer games, chess, tennis, football or take landscape pictures with his drone.
Guillaume started his career with Goldman Sachs in Boston facilitating securities lending transactions. After a move to London, he spent three years as a management consultant working for various Fortune 500 companies, mainly on healthcare and FMCG projects. In 2014, he made the jump to Venture Capital, initially at Athene Capital, then joining Credo in 2016 after a move to Prague. After a good amount of travelling across CEE to work with amazing founders, he jumped to the other side of the table. He joined his own portfolio company, Pricefx to help navigate its first acquisition, Series C fundraise and budgeting exercise through COVID. He wrapped his operational experience with a product strategy role to help inform the product roadmap of the company's complex enterprise SaaS pricing optimization solution. In the second half of 2021, he rejoined Credo as a General Partner.
Guillaume's hobbies include rock climbing, kite surfing and skiing up and down the Alps. Also, eating copious amounts of cheese and bread while playing boardgames.
Guillaume has a Masters from the LSE and an MBA from INSEAD.
Maciek joined Credo as an Investor in 2021. Based between Krakow and Prague, he covers Poland as well as CEE diaspora founders building companies all across Europe and the US. Despite being a generalist investor, his sweet spot lies in the intersection of b2b (enterprise) software, fintech, crypto and capital markets.Before joining Credo, Maciek spent almost 5 years with Innovation Nest, pan-European b2b software focused pre-seed VC firm and invested into a couple of companies based in the UK, Poland and the US. He graduated from Cracow University of Economics.
Jan is a founding partner of Credo Ventures.
He started his entrepreneurial journey during his university studies, mainly because no other career choice offered such independence and opportunity to learn new things. He co-founded an event management company and got his first exposure to tech as a co-founder of a software house. After his company was acquired, he started angel investing and providing consultancy services related to capital raising and acquisitions.
He was an Investor at Poland based VC/PE group MCI Management before starting Credo Ventures with his long-time business partner Ondrej in 2009.
As an investor, Jan is a generalist who stays curious and interested in all verticals. He is always looking for new solutions to existing problems and values authenticity and constructive relationships with founders.
He enjoys spending time traveling with his family, practicing all kind of sports and he is an avid aviator. Arguably he has been behind the controls of most types of flying vehicles with only a handful of them (including spaceships) still remaining on the list.
Jan graduated from the University of Economics in Prague and is a Kauffman Fellow, a highly sought-after program and network dedicated to the world of innovation investing.
Lukas joined Credo in 2022 to start a new fund with a novel story. He is a tech entrepreneur in love with Customers, CX, Product, Tech/Engineering/Infrastructure, Security, and Data/BI.
Before joining Credo, he co-founded Twisto. A FinTech startup acquired by (ASX: Z1P) in 2021 and scaled/led product and portfolio teams from 0 to 2M+ customers. Before that, he was focusing on building tools for developers and designers (that turned into Avocode.com). Thanks to his hands-on experience, he’s able to bridge the tech & exec worlds.
Fun facts: he composes and performs music for/with piano, synthesizers, and a string quartet. He’s also a (white hat) hacker during the night.
Vladislav has been active in the venture capital industry since 1994 when he managed to launch one of the first VC funds in the region. As Managing Partner he was actively involved in several venture capital funds and since 2010 is a Partner at Credo Ventures. Vladislav was previously the President of the Czech Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and was a Board Member of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.
Alena joined Credo in 2022 as a finance analyst. She oversees financial aspects of the fund structures and helps with fund operations and portfolio management. Prior to joining Credo, Alena led finance operations in one of McKinsey’s Central European entities, where she gained diverse experiences in finance, accounting and internal processes improvement.
After almost 5 years at McKinsey, she decided to shift her focus to Venture Capital, where she could utilize the knowledge and experience gained during her studies of corporate finance and valuation in the University of Economics in Prague.
Alena experienced her life’s most memorable moments with her friends, who fortunately share similar interests in active travelling, especially surfing and snowboarding. She likes to reset her mind while painting and has recently started to introduce herself to new sport activities like animal flow, urban dance and reggaeton.
Andrej joined Credo Ventures in 2011 and became a partner in 2015. Previously he was with Benson Oak, an early growth fund and the first backer of AVG Technologies, which is the only Czech company to IPO at the New York Stock Exchange. Andrej graduated from University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce with concentrations in finance and management.
In 2022, Andrej stopped actively investing on behalf of Credo to focus on his own entrepreneurial goals. He remains a board partner to help the many portfolio companies he's been working with over the years.
Jakub's path to VC was not straightforward. He tried consulting at BCG for a bit (that was not the one) but dedicated most of his pre-Credo career to public policy, following big ideals about changing the world. He first spent some time doing research at the Czech Priorities think-tank before moving to the role of the Tech Advisor to the Czech Deputy Defence Minister where it was his job to design policy programmes aiming to foster emerging technologies critical for national security and to protect them against hostile actors. Then he finally anchored at Credo in 2022. While he's a generalist and looks at all kinds of startups, Jakub's favourite founders to work with are strongly technical individuals building on the edge of the state of the art in verticals that can really make a tangible difference in people's lives such as robotics or techbio. He is a cautious techno-optimist, likes studying the role of technological change across history, and believes that (smartly regulated) tech is the ultimate driving force of human progress.
Jakub spends most of his free time doing sports - anything from tennis to freeride skiing goes. He also co-leads and teaches at the Discover Summer Adacemy, and is obsessive about football and football management.
Jakub has a BA from King's College London and an MSc from Imperial College London.
Matěj joined Credo as a tech intern in 2021 and has since then become a full time member of the investment team. When he's not meeting technical founders trying to unwrap the latest opportunities in AI and DevOps, he spends his time on building internal tools to help with automation projects for sourcing, talent, and portfolio support.
Before joining Credo, Matěj worked on developing backend infrastructure for a quantitative trading startup and helped build a leads monitoring system for a Vienna-based private equity firm. Matěj has a Bachelor's from the faculty of mathematics and physics at Charles University and a Masters from the University of Vienna.
Karolina was born and raised in Prague before moving to New York in her early 20s. She began her professional life at 18, building a successful career as a fashion model. While modeling, Karolina graduated cum laude from NYU Stern School of Business with a dual degree in Finance and Marketing. In 2018, she joined White Star Capital where she spent five years investing in North America with focus on consumer internet and marketplace businesses across different verticals.
At Credo, Karolina loves connecting with ambitious and talented founders from the CEE region, sharing common history, humor and culture, while being able to provide help, perspective of a Series A investor and a bridge to North America.
Karolina loves spending her free time with family and friends, in nature and staying active. She enjoys running, cycling, horseriding and snowboarding in the winter. She also picked up chess, where she’s (slowly) learning how not to be a sore loser. Karolina lives between Istanbul and Prague.
Karlovo Náměstí 10
120 00, Prague
Czech Republic
Przemysłowa 12
30-701, Kraków
Poland