Brno Innovation Hub: Czech Republic’s Silicon Valley
Positioned in a South Moravian area within the Czech Republic, Brno metropolis and its environment are sometimes related to a wealthy wine tradition and nice biking routes. Nonetheless, in addition to being a well-liked trip spot, the fame of the Czech second-largest city notably resonates among the many innovation neighborhood throughout the nation and past. From an outdated manufacturing unit space to at present’s metropolis with top-class tech services, the Brno innovation hub has been attracting expertise and firms from around the globe for over twenty years now, beginning to form town into the “Czech Silicon Valley.”
Brno schooling meets innovation
Residence to 13 universities with over 60 000 college students in a metropolis of fewer than 400 000 individuals, Brno is an more and more fashionable place to review on each native and worldwide ranges. Based on a 2021 report by a South Moravian innovation heart JIC, almost half of the latest graduates accomplished programs at science and engineering schools. Furthermore, town information round 1 / 4 of the nation’s Ph.D. graduates yearly, serving to future younger researchers develop themselves within the area.
Essentially the most important benefit of the Brno area is the focus of small and medium-sized companies with their very own industrial and technology-oriented analysis and growth (R&D) websites, opening many alternatives for cooperation. Consequently, the South Moravian area additionally has the best investments in science and the quantity of R&D expenditure to its GDP within the Czech Republic and Central and Japanese Europe, JIC additional studies. Consequently, the information depth within the Brno area takes a number one place throughout the nation and is corresponding to among the most superior EU areas.
Worldwide Brno innovation hub
From Honeywell, Pink Hat, AT&T, and Siemens to SAP, Brno has been attracting multinational tech giants for some time now. In 2021, the area recorded over 77 000 overseas staff, with almost a 3rd of certified employees, a 2022 knowledge report by JIC highlights. Enterprise specialists signify round 50 000 of the area’s staff. Furthermore, the regional high-tech employment of greater than 6% is on par with among the most developed western areas, comparable to Dutch Utrecht or German Oberpfalz.
With essential help from the innovation heart and worldwide startup accelerator JIC, residence to an enormous freelance neighborhood and the most important Affect Hub in Europe, Brno affords an excellent setting for startup and enterprise progress. Based on Crunchbase, there have been 165 startups established ten or fewer years in the past within the South Moravian area.
Notable tech firms from the Brno area
Brno’s business focus is especially centered round software program growth within the areas of Saas, synthetic intelligence, or e-commerce. In addition to the worldwide, well-known firms, the Brno area can be an origin and residential to quite a few Czech firms which might be making an influence on worldwide markets.
Let’s take a look at among the notable firms and startups from the Brno innovation hub that start mapping out the South Moravian ecosystem at The Recursive.
Identify: Kiwi.com
Founders: Oliver Dlouhý, Jozef Képesi, Jiří Hlavenka
About: Based in 2012, Kiwi.com is a web based journey tech firm with over 800 air and floor carriers worldwide. Kiwi.com employs greater than 1500 globally, processes greater than 100 million every day searches, and carries out over 50 000 gross sales of seats per day.
Highlights: Kiwi.com is without doubt one of the fastest-growing Czech firms. The corporate was acquired by US-based Common Atlantic in 2019 and introduced a €100M funding in 2019 to help accelerating progress.
Identify: Y Comfortable
Founders: Václav Muchna and Martin de Martini
About: Y Comfortable is a globally working IT agency that allows companies to run smarter with clever enterprise workplace options. The corporate develops environment friendly 2D and 3D print options, doc seize capabilities, and streamlined automated workflows. Y Comfortable was based in 2000 as a scholar venture at Masaryk College in Brno and at the moment operates in 17 nations with almost 400 staff.
Highlights: The corporate actively helps the tech ecosystem via its innovation heart YSoft Labs and its in-house fund Y Comfortable Ventures.
Identify: MADFINGER Video games
Founder: Marek Rabas
About: As a globally-renowned impartial sport studio with a wealthy portfolio of award-winning titles, MADFINGER Video games’ apps have been performed by hundreds of thousands worldwide. The corporate was based in 2008 by a workforce who beforehand labored within the largest sport studio within the Czech Republic. MADFINGER Video games focuses on high quality visuals, gameplay, and expertise and has since produced well-known sport collection, together with Lifeless Set off, Samurai, and Shadowgun.
Highlights: MADFINGER Video games obtained funding of €5M in 2021 to additional develop their workforce and appeal to new skills.
Identify: ROI Hunter
Founder: Karel Schindler
About: The Product Efficiency Administration (PPM) platform ROI Hunter helps e-commerce retailers to develop into extra worthwhile by gathering product-level knowledge from throughout a retailer’s channels and customized sources. Established in 2014, ROI Hunter gained a Fb Accelerator competitors and have become a Meta Enterprise Associate (MBP).
Highlights: The corporate has workplaces in 5 nations and has to date obtained over €5M in funding, together with from Czech VC KAYA Ventures.
Identify: Smartlook
Founders: Petr Janošík
About: Smartlook is a conduct analytics resolution for net and cell recording customers on web sites and cell apps. The startup was based in 2016 and at present helps over 200,000 companies of all sizes and industries perceive their customers’ actions.
Highlights: Smartlook has raised Sequence A funding of $3.8M in 2020, and was previously supported by Czech Reflex Capital at its early stage.
Identify: VRgineers
Founders: Marek Polčák, Martin Holečko, Václav Bittner
About: VRgineers has been delivering next-generation digital and mixed-reality pilot coaching programs for skilled and army shoppers since 2017. With a headset of the best constancy and the widest area of view out there available on the market, the startup employs 50 technical specialists and business professionals to carry options to shoppers comparable to U.S. Air Pressure, U.S. Navy, the Royal Air Pressure, Audi, Skoda, or Lamborghini.
Highlights: Backed by numerous Czech buyers, together with Tensor Ventures and Nation 1, VRgineers has already raised over $6.5M of their earlier rounds.
Identify: Sewio
Founders: Milan Šimek and Lubomír Mráz
About: Based in 2014, Sewio is a real-time location system (RTLS) producer for indoor monitoring digitization of motion in business 4.0, retail, sport, leisure, and livestock industries. Their IoT resolution permits course of visibility, boosts manufacturing effectivity, simplifies stock course of, and will increase security.
Highlights: Elevating $1M in 2015 from Y Comfortable Ventures, the workforce cooperates with companions and shoppers from over 30 nations, together with Volkswagen, Skoda, and Budvar.
Identify: ThreatMark
Founders: Kryštof Hilar and Michal Tresner
About: ThreatMark is a fraud prevention service supplier (FPaaS) delivering real-time shopper recognition options, enabling banks to construct utterly trusted & secure on-line banking programs. ThreatMark brings the world’s first full-stack fraud prevention platform constructed on conduct intelligence since 2015.
Highlights: The cybersecurity resolution was listed among the many High 50 Know-how Quick 50 for CE by Deloitte and raised over $6.5M from buyers, together with Springtide Ventures and Rockaway Capital.
Identify: Tatum
Founders: Jiří Kobelka and Samuel Šramko
About: Whereas nonetheless at the start of its journey, blockchain startup Tatum has been gaining lots of consideration since its institution in 2018. The workforce develops a platform for constructing infrastructure that permits builders to include blockchain into their merchandise rapidly and simply.
Highlights: Tatum is traditionally the primary Czech startup in SkyDeck accelerator in Silicon Valley. They only closed one of many largest funding rounds of 2022 within the Czech Republic, elevating over $40M from overseas in addition to Czech buyers Tensor Ventures and DEPO Ventures.