The organizations taking the lead in growing startups are the Plzeň Innovation Ecosystem (PINE), Business Innovation Centre (BIC), and SITMP, the city’s IT agency. In this article, we talk to several startups that are coming up under its umbrella; other articles in the series talk about its drone initiative Drony SIT, as well as an in-depth interview with its main initiator, Luděk Šantora.
PINE and Plzeň
PINE is supported by the city and serves as a support that connects education, talent development, innovative entrepreneurship, and research for everything technological. As part of its activities, it runs two sites that are used as offices, both for the city’s SITMP’s own use, as well as the startups it supports.
The most impressive is TechTower in the south of the city – fittingly, a former brewery – which at seven floors commands that part of the city. The other is located close to the center, and is a collection of halls and warehouses refurbished to modern standards.
The latter is where SITMP’s official arms are housed, including Drones SIT, the company’s drone arm, and the Centre of Robotics, which is a talent development unit run by SITMP.
Plzeň TechTower
Startups are divided between the two locations, though slightly more seem to be found at TechTower. One of them is VR Rescue, a company that creates VR software to train people on how to respond in first aid emergencies using a combination of life-size dolls and VR glasses.
Currently, the company is aiming to use its solution to train thousands of people around the globe in basic first aid. This ambitious scope would be impossible without the help of the city, says Jiří Kraupner when I talk to him in a room in TechTower, hemmed in by over 60 suitcases holding his training materials.
“BIC is helping us bring exposure in foreign countries, and of course the money from the incubation programme, which we received last year, and that we used to purchase expert services.”
The support isn’t just in the form of offices or money either: for example, VR Rescue held an event in TechTower where 1,000 people were trained in one day; without the use of the space, it would have been much harder.
Water matters
Nextdrop has a similar story: the startup builds solutions that monitor water flow and identify water leaks, helping to regulate water use and reduce consumption. I’m shown how it works by one of the company’s founders, František Mach, in a utility room on the ground floor of TechTower.
Using it in the TechTower made it easier for Nextdrop to find other users, and it was with the help of SITMP that the Plzeň zoo was persuaded to start using it. “The zoo has water from the river, water from the supply company, and also its own deep water supply,” says Mach. “We detect who in the zoo needs water, how much, and if there is rain, because we also have a reserve of rainwater. All of this is automated.”
Going downtown
The downtown area is less compact and spread out over different low-rise buildings that contain offices, workshops, and even garages. It feels more industrial, probably because it is: it used to be part of the city’s industrial area. It lay derelict until it was taken over by the city to be used for innovative projects.
In one building, I talk to Karel Jedlička in the RoadTwin offices, a startup that makes software that models urban traffic. He’s also quick to point out what PINE and Plzeň have done for him and his company. “[I built the company] with huge help from the city, because they were our pilot in two [earlier] projects.”
This help wasn’t just in the form of affordable office space, though Jedlička, like Kraupner, does point out how much pressure that took off of him. Instead, he focuses on how much it helped to have city officials recommend his software, which is aimed at municipal governments looking to ease traffic congestion.
“When we go to a conference to present the software, and we ask people from the city if they can come with us to tell them, this means it’s not just the company presenting it,” says Jedlička. “It’s also a user, from the city, telling them in their own words how they feel about the software.”
Sound projects
This kind of municipal support is also how Jalud Embedded got its start. The company, headed by Lukáš Svoboda, builds sound detectors that can catch the noise made by breaking glass or even a gunshot, and then alert authorities. The city, says Svoboda, is “essentially our largest client. They have installations across all of Plzeň.”
He also, like many others in the ecosystem, praises its CEO. “Mr. Šantora told us that it is certainly something interesting, something that we think would be very effective for the police and can help.”
Plzeň vs Prague
Of course, as good as everybody is performing, there’s always the looming giant of the competition. Prague is several times bigger than Plzeň, begging the question of what the city feels it has to offer that Prague can’t.
“Plzeň is very close to Prague, people tend to go there because it’s just an hour’s drive.” says Jana Lopatová of InstaCover, a company that uses AI to perform vehicle inspections for insurance companies. “The Prague ecosystem is bigger, more connected to clients, but maybe the strength of this ecosystem here is that it’s more familiar.”
“It’s much easier to be in Prague than somewhere else, because you might be visible here, but getting investment is much harder,” her co-founder, Jiří Voves, chimes in, adding, “on the other hand, the university is here in Plzeň, it’s quite clear that there are a lot of technical people here.”
Lopatová continues. “The city is quite small. We know a lot of people, a lot of great minds in technology, which means we have great people on the team because we have known them for years.”
For them, this connection and community mean more than anything. Being so close to both technical people and other founders is what propelled the company more than finances: “It wasn’t that much about money, but more about mentorship: the advice we got and the opportunities to meet other people,” says Lopatová.
The Plzeň powerhouse
This seems to be something that comes up in all the conversations with Plzeň startups. As much as they like Prague for its connections and better access to investors, they seem to care more about the community they’ve built up, one where everybody knows everybody and where strangers – like your author – are warmly greeted at community events.
This gives founders a massive leg up as they navigate the tough path of running a startup. “The help is immense,” says Kraupner of VR Rescue. Lopatová has a more specific example: “we needed some experienced people to tell us what to do and what not to do when going abroad,” she says with a smile. In a city like Plzeň, these lines are a lot shorter.
