The back story of making the Czech Republic's first electric vehicle was based on a desire to improve the environment of our towns and cities by getting rid of the enormous flood of cars that literally drown us in their toxic air pollution. This is especially evident where I live in Prague since studies have shown that breathing car pollution is like smoking 5 cigarettes a day. The result is something like 8-10,000 premature deaths... or to put it in perspective, it is far more dangerous than Coronavirus!

The good news is that things are changing. Around 65% of EU city journeys are one passenger in a car, travelling only 10-12km per day. More and more these trips are being done on an electric bikes and scooters, which are quicker, cheaper and more enjoyable! The result is that we all breathe healthier, cleaner air - and as a bonus we could make roads much smaller, leaving room for people to bring life to our city streets.

To make this change for the better, we need two things. Someone has to make the electric scooters and someone has to build the charging infrastructure. My intention with Čezeta was to try and deliver both of these things.

At the start, things were difficult because developing and manufacturing a new electric scooter requires high-risk financing. No such project have ever been financed in the Czech Republic from banks or Venture Capitalists and we even ended up losing money when applying for EU grants such is the complexity of the system! Finally it was only with the help of 93 brave Czechs and Slovak crowdfunders that I managed to (re)launch Čezeta in 2018.

The first 2 years have been spent in a constant state of chaos whilst learning everything about this new industry. Yet despite this, we've recently achieved our first goal by finishing the 'first-series' of 60 scooters. They were sold in 10 different countries around Europe and earned around 15m Kc for the Czech economy. Best of all, we've had the chance to learn everything we need to know to make Čezeta a success in the future.

Now we face a difficult choice... we have new products in development that are more affordable as well as new fossil-free charging networks for bikes and scooters, but unfortunately we don't have the resources to develop them.

If you are reading this and thinking that you like the potential of Čezeta's business, please get in touch with me. The opportunity is either to buy a share and work with me - or you may even buy the entire business.



NEIL EAMONN SMITH - FOUNDER & CEO