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Jan Kasper: The Venture Capitalist

ZAKA’s Co-Founder, Managing Partner and serial entrepreneur Jan Kasper has recently been interviewed by Simona Gulisova from Slovak Forbes for the January cover story. We are now bringing you a summary of the key insights that came up during the interview.

Jan Kasper has spent four decades in traditional business, building a portfolio of 52 companies with annual cumulative sales approaching 700 million euros. He has long been known for his involvement in diverse sectors—media, real estate, development, car dealership, leisure & hospitality, and others.

Together with his longstanding partner ans serial entrepreneur Peter Zalesak, he has shifted his attention towards venture capital back in 2019 and established ZAKA VC, which has evolved from a family office into a fully-fledged fund over the time.

“Venture capital is the toughest business I’ve ever done,” he says openly.

From Traditional Business to Venture Capital

The early days were not easy. “We were amateurs in the beginning,” Jan admits. Today ZAKA VC analyzes about 3,500 startups a year and invests in top 10 of them. Over the years, the investment team found their sweet spot in focusing on early-stage companies in healthcare, life sciences, and deep tech.

Of course, learning to assess does not come without making mistakes: “The principle of good investing is also based on the experience that comes with a culture of constructive failure. Based on mistakes, we make analyses that help us avoid future mistakes.” Jan emphasizes that failure is completely natural and happens to everyone. The difference is how we cope with it.

I don’t believe in luck

“Venture capital is complex, risky and requires a huge amount of mental preparation,” Jan notes. His key to startup assessment is an open mind and a systematic framework consisting of 71 questions reflecting the most critical criteria he follows.

With pre-seed and seed being the riskiest phases of a startup lifecycle, the investor needs to have his mind prepared to understand the size of the problem and identify the qualities if the founder. Over the years, Jan and his investment team have trained their minds by assessing up to 70 startups weekly to be able to identify within seven seconds whether they see potential or not. Based on that, the team decides whether to proceed with an intro call and dive deeper in complex criteria assessment. Jan clarifies that their approach is about understanding the problem and market potential, not relying on instinct.

“That stinks of luck, and I don’t believe in luck.”

Cut the losers, support the winners.

The role of an investor has evolved over the years and there is no clear consensus on how much help the investor should provide versus how much space should be left to the founders. Our approach at ZAKA VC is to identify founders who are capable to handle problems by themselves and appreciate not calling them every week. However, we are always happy to help them with connections to other investors and provide them with relevant market information. “We do quite a bit, but let’s not imagine that I will now be constantly leading someone by the hand.”

To maintain rapid growth—typical of genuine startups—ZAKA sets clear expectations for founders, aiming for growth of minimum 5% per week. If this pace isn’t achieved or the market doesn’t respond, Jan references a key principle from Sequoia Capital: “Cut the losers, support the winners.” Nonetheless, Jan believes a strong founder can always pivot toward success.

“The vast majority of successful startups are pivots from failed solutions.”

Shifting towards North America

In 2024, ZAKA officially transitioned from a family office to a venture fund, unlocking new potential as the number of high-quality investment opportunities continues to rise. In 2025, ZAKA is marking another strategic milestone: establishing an office in North America. “We want to support European talent with global ambitions, and that’s why we have to go to America, because without it, global ambitions cannot be realized,” Jan explains.

This decision followed several weeks spent in Silicon Valley, which brought ZAKA new investments, connections, and co-investors. It also offered valuable insights into the US entrepreneurial mindset which is very different from the European: “If we want a prosperous country, we should monitor the basic components that effectively contribute to this. One of the three basic ones is the development of innovations and technologies,” Jan observes.

Searching for unicorns

With strong focus on healthcare, deep tech and life sciences, ZAKA continues to look for exceptional founders working on ideas which go beyond current trends and create real industry disruption. Great potential can be found in industries which may seem “old fashioned” but are ready for a technological transformation. This is why the question “Why now?” is so crucial when assessing an investment.

Jan’s personal ambition is to stay true to what he has been living by in recent years as a venture capitalist:

“Finding capital. Recognizing opportunities. Finding a needle in a haystack.”


Click here for the link to the original interview

Photos: Pasha Borsai for Forbes Slovensko