The Venture Capital Investment Environment in the Czech Republic

This master’s thesis analyses the structure and functioning of the venture capital environment in the Czech Republic, with a focus on its main structural limitations and development opportunities. It examines how available data and the perspectives of key actors explain the ability of the Czech market to attract, allocate and realise returns on capital across individual stages of financing, and places the Czech market in the context of the Central and Eastern European region. The thesis combines an analysis of transaction data for the period 2016–2025, survey findings and semi-structured interviews with selected ecosystem actors, complemented by a regional comparison with Slovakia, Poland and Estonia. The results show that the Czech market has undergone significant professionalisation, but remains structurally uneven. Its main limitation is not an absolute shortage of capital, but rather its uneven availability across financing stages. The market is further characterised by a low number of realised exits, a predominance of foreign buyers and an atomised investor base. A separate finding is the absence of a central and authoritative investment register, which limits the explanatory value of available data. The thesis interprets the identified barriers as an interconnected system and identifies the strengthening of the credibility and capital base of domestic funds as a key leverage point.