The value of investments by private equity and venture capital funds recorded record growth.

Although individual investments in private equity and venture capital funds decreased year-on-year in 2021, their value, on the contrary, increased and reached a total of more than 796.3 million euros. This is record growth within the Czech investment market. The volume of divestments also reached high figures, the total value of which amounted to almost 209 million euros. This follows from the analysis of the CVCA Private Equity Report 2021.

The record growth in the volume of investments in 2021 within the framework of private equity and venture capital funds (PE/VC) can be attributed to the sectoral resistance of the Czech market to the coronavirus crisis. In addition, it strengthened the general interest in some sectors, especially the digital sector. Investors focused more on, for example, e-commerce, IoT, IT and technology companies in general. More than three quarters of all VC transactions on the Czech market took place in the information and communication technology sector.

In addition to investments and divestments, year-on-year growth was also recorded in fundraising, which reached 195 million euros. Even in this case, the market's resistance to the coronavirus crisis was shown, but the geopolitical situation may significantly disrupt the impact on investments not only in the Czech environment. This will bring with it, for example, increasing energy costs or disruption of supply chains.

• One of the most significant events on the VC market is the Czech startup Rossum, which focuses on AI technology and in which the American company General Catalyst invested approximately 88.5 million euros. This transaction had a big impact on the total investment values in the VC markets in 2021.
• In the field of PE, the company Rohlík (Velká Pecka, s.r.o.) has achieved a significant milestone, becoming the first Czech unicorn. In March 2021, it announced an investment of 190 million euros, followed by another 100 million euros in July.
• A significant exit on the VC market was the sale of the Prague company Twisto Payments. It was bought by the Australian payment platform ZIP for 89 million euros.
• In the field of PE divestments, the sale of CN Group and Quinta-Analytica by Genesis Capital Equity is among the significant events of 2021.

"It is clear that Czech private equity and venture capital funds are a strategic and long-term source of financing for growing companies, and the impact of Covid-19 is not fundamentally negative at the moment. It invests mainly in the field of technologies in various stages of development. E-commerce platforms, technology and fintech arouse the greatest interest."

- Dušan Ševc, partner in Deloitte's financial consulting department