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About
About Centralway – The Internet Investor
Centralway is a venture capital company. Our skills are entirely in the area of the Internet, including also the mobile area. We do not make any investments outside of these areas. Read more
Since 1995, we have taken an interest in companies; as Centralway, since 1999. We ourselves had our own startup company, independently managed one of the largest European Internet companies and have participated or are participating in more than 100 Internet companies.
Centralway’s mission is to acquire shares in the world’s best internet companies, to develop these companies, and to sell them for the best possible price.
Our manifesto is based on the extensive experience we have gained over the past few years and comprises 8 key points:
1. The Best
Centralway only concentrates on fulfilling its mission of having interest in the world’s best web-based companies, further developing these companies and selling them at the best price.
2. Simplicity
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”, Albert Einstein.
This is exactly why there are no meetings, no controlling, no Excel spreadsheets, no PowerPoint presentations, no redundant deadlines, no confusing technical jargon, no long discussions, no humiliation and no pessimism.
3. Independence
Decisions as to in which companies we will have interest must be made on the basis of freedom. That is why no fund, no bank or no financial investor has any interest in Centralway.
4. Entrepreneurs Only
Centralway is run by entrepreneurs and it enters only companies that run by entrepreneurs.
5. We Eat What We Have Cooked
Every investment is carried out with our own money. If we fail to reach the goal, we lose our own money. That is the best precondition for making the right decisions.
6. No Operative Management
We do not interfere in the operative management of companies in which we are involved. Instead we focus only on the strategy, on our joint goal to build an excellently working company and then sell it at the best price possible.
7. Contracts
There are no complicated contracts and no small-print texts; each person that has a stake can make free decisions.
8. Speed
A good plan today is better than a perfect one tomorrow. The speed of accomplishing our goals is substantial to us.
Centralway’s core business is the acquisition of shares in good companies, working with the founders of these companies to make them even more successful and then selling them for the best possible price. We merely play a strategic role, that is, we do not interfere with the operational management of the companies in question. This is what we refer to as the “Centralway Exit“.
Centralway was founded in Switzerland in 1999 by Martin Saidler.
Centralway is a venture capital company that acquires shares in up-and-coming internet companies worldwide and develops these companies in collaboration with their founders, with the objective of selling them for the best possible price at a later date. Centralway is an internet pioneer. Since 1999, Centralway has acquired shares in a large number of companies in the internet sector and, by selling these shares, has to date generated a sales volume (exit volume) of more than EUR 500 million. This is what we refer to as the “Centralway Exit“. Centralway is run by entrepreneurs, and not by managers. No funds, no third parties and no banks which will make pressure on our decisions. Every investment is done with our own money. We are eating, what we are cooking. Centralway has two shareholders, Mr. Martin Saidler (Chairman) and Mr. David Dostal (CEO).
Martin Saidler
Born in Vienna, Austria, I have founded my first company at the age of just 17. I even dropped out of my degree in publishing and political science to form a company. At the age of 23, I moved to Berlin, Germany. In 1996, I founded the online job market Jobinteractive.com in Berlin. In 1998, I then sold Jobinteractive.com to Beisheim Holding Schweiz AG (Metro AG), based in Baar, Switzerland, and moved to Switzerland. I subsequently became co-owner of Scout24 AG, and later Chief Visionary Officer at Beisheim Holding AG as well as a member of the board. In 1999, I founded Centralway Holding AG.
David Dostal
Born in Nuremberg, Germany. At the age of 16 I have founded my first company and launched the german webportal gyn.de, which I have sold some time later. After my successful studies of business economics and information management I have worked for a hedge fund as a software developer. Already one year after my studies I moved to Switzerland, Zug and continued to work for my own web development company. In 2007 I became a partner of Centralway and now I am the CEO of Centralway Holding AG.
Przemyslaw Kuffel
I was born in Szczecin, Poland. When I was 4 years old, my family moved to Stuttgart (Germany). My first experience with PC was with a C64 and then Amiga 500. Even at that time I was more interested in codes than games. I did not finish the mechatronics studies as they were too theoretical and little practical, then I completed successfully the informatics studies. During my studies, I created websites independently and implemented several projects successfully. Since 2009, I have been a member of the Centralway team. As a CIO, I am responsible for the complete sector of .com including, the administration of the corporate blog, online marketing, and comprehensive care of the IT infrastructure.
Here are just a few examples:
For legal reasons, we are not permitted to provide any further examples of sales.
Since its founding, Centralway has to date generated a sales volume (exit volume) of more than EUR 500 million from the sale of shares. This is what we refer to as the “Centralway Exit“.
Here are just a few examples:
“Centralway met our expectations, we obtained not only the strong partner, but also the new look to our posibilities of use. Due to Centralway we found the way to our new know-how for another steps, leading to our actual progresses.”
Mojmir Vacek, CEO Ceknito s.r.o.
“Centralway quickly understood the global potential of Webnode.com and actively helped us with our international roll-out.”
Vit Vrba, CEO and founder Westcom s.r.o.
“Centralway was recommended to us and after the first meeting we knew: Centralway will move us forward. Many thanks to the whole Centralway team.”
Alfred Rossi, CEO and founder Proseller AG
“It was a great experience for us during last two years we spent together with Centralway. Mr.Martin Saidler has helped us a lot to prepare the company and offer the unique projects as well as our excellent position on international market to big international investors. Together we rounded it off on 9th March 2007 – Axel Springer has acquired AUTO and Roadlook network!”
Ondrej Bobal, CEO and founder Anima Publishers s.r.o.
“Martin Saidler opened our eyes to new trends in online marketing and sales. We realized we could do a lot more with our company”
Radek Stavinoha, business development director and founder INVIA
“The extensive network of Martin Saidler and Centralway gave us the critical head start to expand to Europe successfully.”
Michal Pysik, CEO and founder Finance.eu
“We chose Martin Saidler and Centralway because of their impressive track record and their deep insights in the European internet markets”
Lukas Thoma, CEO and founder Preisinsel AG
“We have decided to cooperate with Centralway because of three major issues. First, Centralway has a great reputation which helps us to persuade new customers. Second, Centralway connected us with other companies in its portfolio and therefore we can cooperate with such companies as Invia or Jyxo. Third, Centralway also helps us to promote our own business because of Mr. Saidler’s great experience and knowledge. All of these issues are very important for our company.”
David Spinar, CEO and founder H1
“Cooperation with Centralway brought us so far some international cooperations (blog.ch and email.sk), interesting discussions and we expect it will help us in the exit process of one current project.”
Michal Illich, CEO and founder jyxo
“We chose a cooperation with Centralway mainly because of their deep experiences with similar projects and support in our international roll-out. We would also like to appreciate that Centralway showed us new business opportunities of FDB.cz.”
Pavel Matoušek, CEO and founder fdb.cz
“I couldn’t imagine anyone else for our expansion to CZ and Europe who has better experience in this sector. After very short time spent with Martin Saidler i realised that our cooperation will not stay only with this one project.”
Michal Obeda, CEO and founder autobazar.eu s.r.o.
“We hope that we can increase our traffic and especially our technological extensions in the cooperation with Centralway. Furthermore we are looking forward to get help in structuring our company. Centralway‘s big experience in the exit process is one main reason for the cooperation. But the determing factor were the excellent references of Centralway.”
David Holeček, CEO and founder Hledejceny.cz s.r.o.
“Cooperation with Centralway is a great advantage for us because of their consultancy and valuable advice. We have also opportunity to cooperate with another projects connected with Centralway. Together we create an optimal business model of our company and we consider the best strategy in project development.”
Libor Hoření, CEO and founder toprecepty.cz s.r.o.
“We see our cooperation with Centralway as a great opportunity for our company to expand our activities abroad much faster. Centralway has a long history of successful projects – with their experience and contacts we hope to become one of them.“
Jan Šmidák, CTO and co-founder Hypermedia a.s.
The easiest way to meet with us is at our hangar, where we can talk face-to-face. We are also available at various events and conferences. Or you may contact us over our various contact possibilities. Surely we will be able to find a suitable place to meet one another.
About our business
Since its founding, Centralway has to date generated a sales volume (exit volume) of more than EUR 500 million from the sale of shares. This is what we refer to as the “Centralway Exit“.
Centralway has an ownership interest only in companies:
Centralway invests in seed, early-stage and growth stage phases of a company. We do not want to tie ourselves down, because we are firmly convinced that modern companies grow so quickly at the present time, that it is difficult and frequently even impossible to define the phase, in which the company is. Measured by conventional methods, a company, such as our investment in Webnode, is an early-stage investment. In actual fact, Webnode is highly profitable, stable, shows a steady growth and is not an early-stage investment. We look at every company individually and reach a decision concerning its quality and that of the product.
We are active investors. Together with management, we develop a new strategy, draw up a new business plan and set concrete milestones, in order to sell the company at the best price.
It is important that each businessman knows that we do not get involved in the operative management and, instead, concentrate our efforts only on the strategy and the common goal of developing a wonderful company and selling it at the best price.
About our hangar
The hangar is the place where we meet in order to work and discuss. The idea of naming our work area “hangar” came to us, since we spend most of our time traveling, much of it at airports.
Our method of working is heavily dependent on a mobile style of life. We attend to almost all of our activities on the road. However, when we meet, we want to work jointly on our ideas in a relaxed atmosphere. We have only couches, no tables, no conference room, simply nothing that would be found in a typical office.
Since our small “hangar” is slowly becoming too confining for us, we are searching for a somewhat larger one. We simply need more space. For this reason, we have decided on a proper “hangar” at an airport. Since our requirements cannot be fulfilled so easily, it will take some time before we find something suitable. As a small pre-taste, our Lego hangar.