EIF IN THE
CZECH REPUBLIC
Investing in the future of Czech SMEs
Small and medium-size enterprises are the heart of the Czech economy.
Representing 99% of all businesses and more than two thirds of the workforce, the Czech Republic's 1,023,000 SMEs are responsible for driving innovation as well as spurring on growth, and their daily routine is what ensures the competitiveness of the Czech economy. But to do that, they often need finance.
At the same time, as the smallest actors in the economy, they are often the hardest hit when the economy encounters turbulence, which is why it is so crucial for them to have financial options in order to maintain and eventually grow their businesses.
At the EIF, our mission is to improve access to finance for small businesses across the EU. In the Czech Republic, we have been supporting SMEs using a broad range of instruments, including many tailored to the needs of the Czech market and designed with the Czech government and local authorities.
As a result, we've been able to support more than 35,000 Czech businesses, ranging from companies specialising in digital platforms for tenants and landlords, film festivals for children, and baby food production, making sure they have the financial fuel they need to pursue their ambitions.
Our intention is to continue to extend this type of support to the Czech market, making access to finance easier as we collectively move towards a greener, digital and more inclusive Europe.
Success stories
Rohlik
Success stories
Rohlik
“Having groceries delivered to your door is great but receiving them within 2 hours of placing your order and knowing that the content of your basket is the best premium quality food and ingredients you can possibly find takes the concept to a completely new level. We want people to eat well and live well. That’s our goal—making great tasting, awesome food easily accessible through a modern, easy-to-use, and time-saving service,” says Tomáš Čupr, Rohlik Group CEO. Founded in 2014, Rohlik is an online grocery ordering and delivery business active in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria.
With more than 17,000 products on offer, more than 750,000 customers, and passionate attention to customer service, it is the leader of e-grocery in Central Europe, although it didn’t come easily. “We’ve had our share of challenges. No one had tried to set up a similar business in our country before, we had to invent everything ourselves. It took us 3-4 years to stabilise our systems, find a balance between profitability and capacity for customer, but in the end we managed to build a profitable company.”
Juniorfest
“All the films children see leave a message in their minds,” explains Judita Soukupova, Juniorfest Director. “For us, the best children’s films are those that help children see things differently, becoming more tolerant, more courageous, more objective about their problems, and inspire them to be more ambitious in life.”
Concerned that high quality children’s films do not reach the Czech public through commercial distribution channels, she and her team set up Juniorfest, a film festival for children (aged 5-11) and youth (12-16) that has been taking place in November since 2008. It has since expanded to 5 different cities, attracting more than 15,000 spectators, the vast majority of whom are children and youth.
In 2019, Juniorfest showed 136 films from around the world, particularly European productions. “We look for educational material, but not boring stuff,” explains Judita, “The films range from comedy to drama and adventure, communicating strong messages on important themes like friendship, tolerance and open-mindedness, but also difficult subjects like divorce, race, and bullying—difficult topics, but addressed in a sensitive way.”
Deva Nutrition
Nutricia Deva is a former Danone-owned, high-quality facility that produces fruit desserts and fruit drinks for babies in glass jars and bottles, possessing strong fresh fruit processing competencies and multiple bio and organic certifications. Following its acquisition by Arx Equity Partners, a private equity firm that supports the growth of mid-sized companies in Central Europe, Nutricia Deva continued to produce the same high-quality recipes, but now under their own brand name (Deva) and to supply other private labels, exporting to 16 different countries from their base in Nové Město nad Metují.
But the initial transition posed certain challenges. They had no management structure of their own, and needed to fill various roles, from General Manager and CFO to IT and sales, but, once accomplished, the company experienced growth. “Now that we have established the Deva brand, we are looking into selling to retailers outside Europe like South America, Asia and Africa. The company is also looking to develop new products like pouches, extending our packaging capabilities and moving away from the current focus on glass jars.”
Spaceflow
“Who will attract the best tenants? Landlords who build customer-tailored service and offer interactive amenities experience,” notes Pavel Pavel Jiranek, COO of Spaceflow, a company that connects buildings and people for an all-in-one tenant experience solution. “Spaceflow helps you to increase asset value, unlock new revenue streams and become data driven. The app offers all sorts of services, ranging from booking meeting rooms or bikes, and redeeming perks, to opening doors and connecting third party services to the building.”
Following the pandemic, the tenant experience market witnessed a massive shift: “Landlords are under increasing pressure to make their buildings more appealing and above all, safe. Our product may have been a ‘nice to have’ in the past, but now, it is becoming a ‘must have’ if you want to remain competitive,” Pavel explains. The company is now present in 17 markets, powering 300+ properties with 200,000+ residential units contracted in major cities like London, New York, Munich and Prague, disrupting the building experience globally and looking forward to additional growth in the coming years.
Planus EU
PLANUS EU is a Czech company based in the region of Olomouc that produces and installs specialised doors. Its AEGIS line of fire doors, named after the mythological shield, consists of safety doors lined with fire resistant steel and direct impact resistance on both sides, regardless of the direction of the hinges. The fire resistance is determined directly by testing, and the company makes variants in smoke-tight design and atypical dimensions or colour finishes.
Its founder, Miroslav Krahulik already had previous experience working in the sector and wished to approach the business in his own way. In addition to the safety doors, Miroslav wished to build doors for wine cellars: “you can build a fully-fledged air-conditioned wine cellar at home under the floor of your living room, which simulates the conditions of conventional wine cellars—a stainless steel structure sunk into the ground,” Miroslav explains. This blending of formal and function has proven to be a winning formula for the company.
Key figures
Over
of EIF financing
Transactions with financial intermediaries
Equity investments since inception
Guarantees support since inception
made available for
Czech businesses
Mandates in focus
The EIF continues to deploy capital in the Czech Republic under a wide range of strategic programmes and mandates. Below are brief summaries of our main initiatives in the Czech Republic.
InvestEU
The InvestEU programme provides the EU with crucial long-term funding by leveraging substantial private and public funds in support of a sustainable recovery. It is helping to mobilise private investments for the EU’s policy priorities, such as the European Green Deal and the digital transition. The InvestEU Programme brings together under one roof the multitude of EU financial instruments previously available to support investment in the EU, making funding for investment projects in Europe simpler, more efficient and more flexible. The programme consists of three components: the InvestEU Fund, the InvestEU Advisory Hub and the InvestEU Portal. The InvestEU Fund is implemented through financial partners that will invest in projects using the EU budget guarantee of €26.2 billion. The entire budget guarantee will back the investment projects of the implementing partners, increase their risk-bearing capacity and thus mobilise at least €372 billion in additional investment.
RCR
The EIB’s Risk Capital Resources (RCR) is the core pillar of the EIF’s equity activity. It has enabled us to pursue our equity strategy in the venture capital and growth segments for more than 25 years. In 2023, RCR accounted for 25% of our equity activity, committing €1.4bn to financial intermediaries.
EFSI
The European Fund for Strategic Investments formed part of the EU’s Investment Plan for Europe, launched by the European Commission in 2015. EFSI addressed market gaps in financing - whether in infrastructure, research, energy efficiency or risk finance for SMEs – and mobilised private investment into these areas. Through EFSI the EIF deployed €10.5bn in resources of the European Commission, the EIB and the EIF to improve access to finance for SMEs and small midcaps.
REPowerEU
The EU launched REPowerEU in 2022 to reduce dependence on fossil-fuel imports and accelerate the green transition. To support the plan, in October 2022, the EIB Group developed a package of measures focussing on renewable energy, energy efficiency, electricity networks and on deepening its engagement in green innovation and breakthrough technologies. Under REPowerEU, the EIF will invest €4.5bn by 2027 through EIF equity products.
CEFoF
The Central Europe Fund of Funds (CEFoF) is a €97m fund-of-funds initiative created in close co-operation with the governments and national agencies of Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia to boost equity investments into SMEs and small mid-caps across the region, establishing a sound market-based risk financing infrastructure, implementing the best market standards for equity investments in businesses and attracting institutional investors and investment managers to Central Europe.
ESIF Fund-of-Funds
The €50m Czech ESIF Fund of Funds (CZFoF), launched in 2017 and managed by the EIF, aims to boost entrepreneurship and innovations as well as to create a lasting impact on the country’s equity ecosystem, by increasing available equity funding for enterprises throughout the whole cycle of their early stage development, ranging from accelerators for the very first entrepreneurship steps to further venture capital for companies that have already demonstrated interest in their products or services.
RRF Equity
In 2023, the Czech Republic mandated the EIF to manage an €55m fund-of-funds focused on equity financing for early-stage Czech start-ups and spin-offs developing digital technologies. This fund, funded by the Czech Republic's Recovery & Resilience Facility (RRF) resources, will invest in three VC funds with specialised strategies: a pre-seed co-investment fund, a fintech fund focused on applications of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) benefitting from a new regulatory sandbox, and a technology transfer fund commercialising research from leading Czech universities in the field of artificial intelligence. Overall, this initiative will contribute to the digital transformation of the national economy and the development of the increasingly robust Czech venture capital market.
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