February 18, 2021

Andrea Lauren: How at Rockaway Ventures we're learning to put ESG into practice

In 2005 UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan first presented the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment (UN PRI) at the New York Stock Exchange. These principles are based on the conviction that problems related to the environment, social aspects, and corporate governance (ESG) can affect the performance of investments. Institutional investors should therefore be obliged to take them into account in their investment decisions and not just look at the traditional financial and operating indicators.

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January 15, 2021

Dušan Zábrodský: How a crazy idea became the "Balkan Amazon" that's tearing down borders

Soon it will be six years since Rockaway entered what for us was a hitherto unexplored market – the Balkans. And back then we followed our motto, “hic sunt leones” to the letter. In this commentary I’ll show you what the Gjirafa experience taught us, what’s key when you decided to build a business in a country you know nothing about, and what you should watch out for in the Balkans.

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December 10, 2020

Andrea Lauren: The IPO storm: how the global Covid-19 crisis has helped primary capital markets

Brian Chesky in a suit on the front page of the Financial Times: yes, it’s here, the long-awaited, then postponed and now re-announced Airbnb IPO on NASDAQ, at a share price of U$ 68. Through this emission, the company will receive U$ 3.4 billion, giving the company a total market cap of U$ 40.6 billion. Seven percent of shares will be allocated to the hosts who rent their apartments, rooms, villas and wigwams through Airbnb. That’s of course a smart move that will ensure their loyalty to the platform and a stable selection of accommodations for guests.

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December 4, 2020

Dušan Zábrodský: What's behind on-line grocery shopping and why the Czech Republic is the best at it in Europe

At first glance it seems simple. You click a few times in an application, get a phone call from a courier who runs up to the fifth floor do give you bags full of groceries, and your shopping is done. Thanks to the pandemic, thousands of new customers have learned to shop on Košík.cz, our on-line supermarket, because they’ve realized that visiting an e-shop is significantly more convenient than a brick-and-mortar one. And that it saves tons of time.

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November 20, 2020

Gjirafa and ThreatMark are among the 50 fastest-growing companies in Central Europe

Two companies in the Rockaway portfolio have fought their way into Deloitte’s Fast 50 Central Europe for 2020, a list of the fifty fastest-growing tech companies in Central Europe – the Gjirafa content and e-commerce platform took 11th place, and Brno start-up ThreatMark 32nd place. The list monitored revenue growth over four years during 2016-2019, which was 1509 % for Gjirafa and 783 % for ThreatMark.

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