JIC, an innovation agency co-founded by four universities in Czechia’s South Moravian Region, has launched a CZK400 million early-stage venture fund, JIC Ventures.
JIC Ventures will back around 20 preseed and seed-stage startups over the next four years, writing individual cheques of up to €1 million for startups located in Central and Eastern Europe.
JIC Ventures is particularly focused on areas including deep tech and software-as-a-service. It has more than 40 limited partners, including industrial parks developer CTP, which made the largest commitment.
Arguably, its most unusual limited partner is the Diocese of Brno, in what appears to be the first time any spinout investment fund has attracted such an entity.
Česká spořitelna, the country’s largest financial services firm, the South Moravian Region and a long list of local entrepreneurs are also LPs, reflecting JIC’s deep ties to the Brno ecosystem.
JIC was founded in 2003 by Masaryk University, Brno University of Technology, Mendel University in Brno, and the University of Veterinary Sciences Brno, together with the Statutory City of Brno and the South Moravian Region.
JIC Ventures’ distinctive approach is rooted in its two-decade legacy of supporting over 1,300 startups, providing commercialisation support, an incubator programme, and a dedicated scale-up initiative. It has made small investments since 2015, and JIC Ventures formalises and strengthens this activity.
The fund anticipates that its close ties to universities will play a critical role in sourcing deals.
“In the last five years alone, companies supported by JIC have achieved exits worth €640 million. We initiated this fund because we want many more globally successful startups to emerge – companies that can help shape a new economy for the Czech Republic and strengthen Europe’s competitiveness.”
Petr Chládek, CEO of JIC
The fund is led by managing partners Radim Kocourek, who has worked for JIC for more than 22 years, and Miloš Sochor, who has been with JIC since early 2024.
A launch event for JIC Ventures was attended by Petr Pavel, president of Czechia, signalling that early-stage spinouts and startups are top of the government’s agenda.
