In the tech world, the Czech Republic is widely known as the home of Avast, the antivirus software. But this small central European country has so much more to offer. 

Over the last few years, the Czech startup ecosystem has been bubbling with new projects and ideas. It’s produced several unicorns — such as the online grocer Rohlik Group and productivity tool Productboard — while other local startups are expected to hit billion-dollar valuations soon too. 

Sifted asked the country’s five top VCs which startups they’re watching — and we’ve listed all those that were nominated twice.

Rossum

Founded: 2017
Number of employees: 255
Founders: Tomas Gogar, Petr Baudis and Tomas Tunys
Funding: In October 2021, Rossum raised a $100m Series A from General Catalyst with participation from previous investors LocalGlobe, Seedcamp, Miton and Elad Gil. 

Rossum’s platform uses AI to help companies understand, exchange and process documents, and can also communicate with people and act based on the content. 

Tatum

Founded: 2017
Number of employees: 53
Founders: Jiri Kobelka, Samuel Sramko
Funding: Tatum has just raised $41.5m from lead investor Evolution Equity Partners, along with existing investors Octopus, 3VC, Tensor Ventures and Depo Ventures.

The company offers a platform for developers to build, test and run blockchain apps.

Mews

Founded: 2012
Number of employees: 535
Founder: Richard Valtr
Funding: It raised a $33m Series B from Battery Ventures and HenQ in 2019 and got an additional €5m from Salesforce in December last year.

Mews is a property management software solution for hoteliers. It helps hotel managers streamline bookings, check-in and revenue management. 

4Trans

Founded: 2021
Number of employees: 25
Founders: Jaroslav Ton
Funding: It raised a €18m seed round in June this year from Atmos, Tera Ventures and Lighthouse Ventures. The round included €3m in equity funding and €15m in debt, from Advance Global Capital.

4Trans provides factoring services — selling and buying debt — to supply chain and logistics companies like hauliers. What makes it different from traditional factoring providers is its AI-driven instant risk modelling, which allows the company to pay hauliers up front in minutes.

Resistant.ai

Founded: 2019
Number of employees: 52
Founders: Jan Stiborek, Josef Stach
Funding: It raised a $16.6m Series A from Index Ventures, Seedcamp, GV and Credo Ventures in October 2021. 

The company protects other AI-based financial automation systems from manipulation, misuse and intentional attacks with its own AI.

Better Stack

Founded: 2021
Number of employees: 16
Founders: Juraj Masar, Veronika Kolejak
Funding: In July 2021 it raised $18.6m seed round led by Creandum with the participation of Susa Ventures, K5 Global, Credo Ventures, KAYA VC and angel investors. 

Better Stack offers tools that help with monitoring, logging and incident management for software developers so they can react to outages rapidly. 

Oddin.gg

Founded: 2018
Number of employees: 35
Founders: Marek Suchar, Vlastimil Venclik
Funding: It raised a $4.5m Series A in August this year from Velo Partners, Genting Ventures, Presto Ventures and angel investors.  

Oddin’s platform helps bookmakers create a more engaging esports betting experience, especially for young audiences. Its AI tool generates live data from esports competitions to provide real-time betting odds.

Data was collected on Dealroom.

Zosia Wanat is Sifted’s central and eastern Europe reporter, based in Warsaw. She tweets from @zosiawanat