Despite the economic downturn of 2022 with spiking inflation and significantly rising energy prices, the Czech Republic startup ecosystem has recorded many milestones this year. From seeing its second-ever unicorn, Productboard, to investors opening several new funds and supporting startups with more funding than in 2021, the Czech innovation community maintained its growth.
To outline the notable investments recorded in the country, The Recursive has created a list of the top 10+ largest funding rounds in the Czech Republic in 2022.
1. Rohlik
Funding: €220M
Founders: Tomáš Čupr, Marek Sacha
Stage: Series D
Investors: Sofina, ORBIT Capital, Index Ventures, Tomáš Čupr
Company size: Unspecified
About: Rohlik Group is a Prague-based online innovative grocery delivery store with a 90-minute same-day delivery service. The startup became the first Czech unicorn in 2021 and currently attains an annual revenue of €500M. Outside of the Czech Republic, the Rohlik group operates in Hungary, Austria, and Germany and expands to Romania, Italy, and Spain.
2. Mews
Funding: $185M (∼ €174M)
Founder: Richard Valtr
Stage: Series C
Investors: Kinnevik, Goldman Sachs, Revaia, Derive Ventures, ORBIT Capital, Notion Capital, Salesforce Ventures, henQ, Battery Ventures, Thayer Ventures
Company size: Unspecified
About: Mews is a SaaS-based hotel property management system that helps hotels, hostels, apartments, and other hospitality clients simplify their operations, including reservations, payments, and others. The startup provides smart automation and an innovative, easy-to-use set of products and features. Mews has over 1700 customers in more than 60 countries, with the biggest office based in Prague. The startup closed one of the biggest funding rounds (4th) recorded in the Czech Republic.
3. Ataccama
Funding: $150M (∼ €142M)
Founders: Michal Klaus, Jan Červinka, Jan Mrázek, Petr Jech
Stage: Unspecified – Ventures
Investor: Bain Capital Tech Opportunities
Company size: ∼ 500 employees
About: Ataccama brings an international AI-based enterprise platform for combining data quality, metadata, master data management, and integration. Ataccama gives businesses and data teams the power to manage and innovate their data fast while preserving security and trust.
4. Productboard
Funding: $125M (∼ €119M)
Founders: Hubert Palán, Daniel Hejl
Stage: Series D
Company size: ∼ 400 employees
Investors: Tiger Global Management, Dragoneer Investment Group, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Credo Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners
About: Productboard is a SaaS product management company that assists and helps teams organize their workflow by understanding their clients and developing the right product more effectively. The solution is used by over 5400 companies, including Microsoft, Zoom, and UiPath. Productboard’s offices are based in Prague, San Francisco, and Vancouver.
5. DoDo
Funding: €60M
Founders: Michal Menšík, Wojciech Kazimierski
Stage: Series B
Investors: Rockaway Capital, J&T Ventures, EC Investments
Company size: ∼ 1500 employees
About: Startup DoDo is a delivery marketplace specializing in same-day service using intelligent technologies of data-driven solution and agile processes. DoDo currently oversees over 600+ cars and 1300+ couriers in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Austria. The company’s clients include Tesco, Košík, KFC, and Alza.
6. Tatum
Funding: $41.5M (∼ €39.4M)
Founders: Jiří Kobelka, Samuel Šramko
Stage: Series A
Investors: Evolution Equity Partners, Tensor Ventures, Octopus Ventures, LeadBlock Partners, DEPO Ventures, 3VC, angel investors
Company size: ∼ 60 employees
About: Tatum is a blockchain development platform that brings developers an easy-to-use application programming interface to build and incorporate blockchain infrastructure more quickly. Coming from the Moravian tech hub Brno, Tatum is historically the first Czech startup in SkyDeck accelerator in Silicon Valley.
7. Kentico & Kontent.ai
Funding: €39M
Founder: Petr Palas
Stage: Unspecified – Private Equity Round
Investor: Expedition Growth Capital
Company size: ∼ 400 employees
About: Kentico is a content creation platform that combines content management, digital marketing, and commerce. It has more than 1,000 digital solution partners and powers over 30,000 websites across 120 countries. Kentico’s daughter company Kontent.ai is a modular content platform that helps marketers and developers plan, create, and deliver experiences across any channel. Eighteen years after its establishment, Kentico raised funds for the first time to further grow both companies.
8. MANTA
Funding: $35M (∼ €32M)
Founder: Tomáš Krátký
Stage: Series B
Investors: Forestay Capital, Senovo, SAP.iO, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Credo Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, angel investors
Company size: ∼ 150 employees
About: MANTA is an automated data lineage platform that transforms assets and gives teams complete visibility and control over data pipelines. The startup also provides teams with a tool to improve data governance, streamline migration projects, and accelerate incident resolution. MANTA’s main offices are based in Prague and the US (New York, Tampa).
9. Deepnote
Funding: $20M (∼ €19M)
Founders: Jakub Jurových, Filip Stollár, Jan Matas, Jirka Lhotka
Stage: Series A
Investors: Index Ventures, Accel, Y Combinator, angel investors
Company size: ∼ 25 employees
About: Included in our list of startups to watch in 2023, Deepnote is a Czech-Slovak-based data science platform focused on notebooks for teams, allowing them to collaborate and visualize information from different systems. Deepnote enables users to connect their data, explore, and analyze it with real-time collaboration and version control.
10. 4Trans Factoring
Funding: €18M (€3M + €15M)
Founder: Jaroslav Ton
Stage: Seed + Debt Financing
Investors: Advance Global Capital, Tera Ventures, Lighthouse Ventures, Atmos Ventures
Company size: ∼ 25 employees
About: 4Trans Factoring startup brings a fast financing solution to underserved businesses in logistics. Featured among the leaders in SME finance in CEE, 4Trans solves the problem of logistics companies’ insufficient access to invoices and payments by instantly paying invoices, verifying customers, and providing an ecosystem of financial services based on real-time data.
11. Better Stack
Funding: $18.6M (∼ €17.6M)
Founders: Juraj Masar, Veronika Kolejaková
Stage: Series A
Investors: Creandum, Susa Ventures, K5 Global, KAYA, Credo Ventures, angel investors
Company size: 11-50 employees
About: Better Stack, another startup featured in our 2023 startups to watch list, provides DevOps solutions for software teams to more easily monitor their application performance, aggregate data, and logs from multiple data sources. Better Stack focuses on turning logs and monitoring to help companies deliver software faster. Over 1400 companies use the Czech-Slovak-based startup’s solution.
