Aleš has completed his Ph.D. in 2014 in Open Innovation at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is one of the active founders of ABC Accelerator in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and is also a founder of ABC First Growth, the VC arm of ABC. Until recently, he split his time between ABC and his professorship at the university. He has tutored and mentored over 150 companies in the three years since the formation of ABC and was its most experienced manager.

“If you are going through hell, keep going!”

He continues to research new forms of innovation, emerging innovation systems, and business models connected to them at the university, and he is also systematically working with both start-up companies and large corporations trying to achieve accelerated growth. He remains closely connected to South, Eastern, and Central Europe, using the diverse environments and experiences as inputs for his research.

Ales brings a unique perspective to Fil Rouge Capital, balancing his partners’ managerial backgrounds with experience of start-ups untainted by the corporate world, and he does have a doctorate, so he should really be addressed as Dr. Pustovrh. His outdoor passion is mountain-based: walking, climbing, and even ice-climbing. To the dismay of his partners he does not wakeboard and he is no threat to the Bordeaux cellar, although beer is another matter.

Principal sweet spots:

Horeca, edtech, deep tech, Hospitality, AI, Enterprise, Smartcities, Spotech, AI/ML

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