Top 17 most active Czech VC funds in H1 2022

AIN.Capital has created a ranking of the most active Czech VC funds in H1 2022. The ranking includes 17 local backers that together made 82 investments during January 2022-June 2022. Lighthouse Ventures, Credo Ventures, and Presto Ventures topped the list by closing 34 deals.

Methodology

We applied the same methodology, as we used in preparing rankings of the most active Polish, Baltic, Finnish, and Hungarian venture capital funds. Firstly, to create the list of top Czech backers, we analyzed the investment activities of all active VCs in this country for the period from January 2022 to June 2022. 

After that, we chose those that made one or more investments in startups in the first half of 2022, and conducted a survey among them. Relying on their answers, open source information, as well as Dealroom.com and Crunchbase data, we chose 17 backers that have led or joined at least one round in the six months of 2022. 

This ranking consists of profiles of the 17 most active Czech VC funds and shows information on the number of investments they made in total and within the period mentioned above, funding focus, ticket sizes, management team, and recently closed deals.

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1. Lighthouse Ventures

Lighthouse Ventures is an early-stage and acceleration venture capital, focused on technology projects with global vision. The firm invests in European based startups with strong value creating operations in the Czech Republic. Lighthouse manages around €28 million of assets set for early-stage financing and accelerations.

Recent investments: Boomion, Okredo, 4Trans Factoring, Workee.

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2. Credo Ventures

Credo Ventures is a venture capital company focused on early-stage investments in Central Europe. The firm is looking for high-growth potential in companies with international ambitions and competence to execute and deliver. It has a total of €170 million assets under management.

Recent investments: Better Stack, The Village, MANTA, Mindgram.

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3. Presto Ventures

Presto Ventures is a venture capital fund based in Prague. The fund invests in B2B tech startups, supporting them with invaluable resources and guidance, and allowing them to achieve local and global success. As Presto Ventures emphasized, it is interested in quick progress of its portfolio startups, including fast learning, fast business development, and fast growth.

Recent investments: Okredo, Choice, Inventoro, Finmap.

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4. Nation 1 VC

Nation 1 VC is a Prague-based venture capital firm focused on investing in seed-stage startups operating in the Czech Republic. The firm prefers to make minority investments in seed-stage and early-stage companies operating in the fintech, insurancetech, artificial intelligence, customertech, e-commerce, and travel sectors.

Recent investments: Hedepy, Daytrip.

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5. ZAKA Startups

ZAKA Ventures is an operative private VC firm that invests on pre-seed and seed stages all across the EU with primary focus in the CEE region. It operates from Prague, Bratislava, and Berlin. According to ZAKA Ventures, it invests €3 million yearly in 10-15 companies.

Recent investments: Velaris, E-mobilio, Flexkeeping.

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6. DEPO Ventures

Established in 2016, DEPO Ventures group manages a VC fund and an international network of angel investors called Angel Syndicate. The fund typically invests €100,000 in European tech startups with valuation that amounted up to €3 million.

Recent investments: Augmented Robotics, Kardi AI, DriveX.

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7. J&T Ventures

J&T Ventures is an early-stage VC fund based in Prague. The firm supports European entrepreneurs in the early stages of their journey with up to €2.5 million in funding. It is active in different industries, with focus on fintech, proptech, retail, IoT/IoE, and industry 4.0. Currently, J&T has €40 million assets under management, as well as 35 investments made.

Recent investments: Choice, Sense Arena, Daytrip.

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8. Tensor Ventures

Tensor Ventures is an invitation-only venture capital fund investing into deeptech startups. Apart from the funding, it offers direct connections to Silicon Valley and Asia VCs ecosystems, as well as support active business development of its portfolio companies on a global level.

Recent investments: Qc82, Bioo.

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9. Rockaway Capital

Rockaway Capital was established in 2013. It focuses on startups, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe and DACH, which digitize traditional industry and at the same time follow the principles of environmental, social, and governance. According to the firm, its team has one of the best venture capital track records in the CEE region, with an annual IRR of 46 % and €41.6 million in returned capital.

Recent investments: Campiri, DoDo.

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10. KAYA

KAYA is an early-stage venture capital fund based in Prague, investing in founders across Europe since 2010. The firm supports startups that make a positive impact in addition to creating financial value in tech and tech-enabled industries. KAYA has €270 million assets under management and over 48 companies under its belt.

Recent investments: Healee, Amano, AhoyConnect, Cardiomatics.

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11. Longevitytech.fund

Praha-based Longevitytech.fund makes pre-seed and seed-stage investments in early-stage tech startups and spinoffs worldwide that are aimed to extend healthy human lifespan. The firm cooperates closely with scientists in the field of aging research and rejuvenation, biotechnology, bioinformatics, agetech, and related AI. Currently, Longevitytech.fund is raising its second fund with a target size of $50 million.

Recent investments: Remedium Bio, MitoRx Therapeutics, Sampling Human.

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12. Springtide Ventures

Founded in 2014, Springtide Ventures is a venture capital arm of private multinational financial and investment group KKCG. It seeks to invest in early-stage start-ups across Europe and Israel. It typically invests $1 million-$10 million, but thanks to the multi-stage approach, the firm is ready to support successful projects by taking part in successive investment rounds well beyond this range.

Recent investments: NetOp CLD, Source Defense, OpenLoop.

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13. Pale Fire Capital

Founded in 2015, Pale Fire Capital is a Praha-based private equity investment group supporting technological innovation across multiple industries. The firm provides both financial and strategic support, including the advice services from its  in-house teams in marketing, HR, and finance. It prefers to support the startups with global ambitions, helping them to expand the international footprint.

Recent investments: Valuo Technologies, Daytrip. 

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14. Impulse Ventures

Impulse Ventures is a venture capital investor focused on seed and Series A stages for tech startups in the CEE region, but often invests in the follow-up rounds as well. The fund claims to be committed to staying with the investment for over 5 years in order to maximize the value for founders. So far, the fund exited such major tech companies like Kiwi.com, Mall.cz, and Centrum.cz in combined value exceeding €650 million.

Recent investments: Itera Technologies, Dataddo, Flangi.

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15. Reflex Capital

Founded in 2012, Reflex Capital is a venture capital firm headquartered in Prague. The firm seeks to invest in early-stage companies operating in the software sectors. As the fund claims, rather than business models, personalities of the founders play a key role in its investments.

Recent investments: PPC Bee.

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16. Inven Capital

Inven Capital is a venture capital fund established to invest in the European new energy sector. It seeks investments into innovative cleantech/smart energy growth-stage startups. The fund is interested in areas such as energy efficiency, distributed generation, flexibility and storage, energy, IoT, and clean transportation.

Recent investments: Zolar.

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17. Y Soft Ventures

Y Soft Ventures is a venture capital arm of Y Soft Corporation, investing in founders who build innovative B2B hardware & software startups in Central and Eastern Europe. Apart from the funding, Y Soft Ventures provides portfolio companies with the necessary resources and expertise to accelerate their path to the global markets.

Recent investments: Dronetag.