Czech billionaire's Jet Venture 1 backs four startups from its €50M industrial fund
What's the deal? Jet InvestmentDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the Brno-based group owned by Czech billionaire Igor Fait and his partners, deployed more than CZK 150 million into four startups over the past month through its venture fund, Jet Venture 1Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The recipients are Sweden's GigaScan TechnologiesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Berlin's Phantasma LabsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and US startups HermetiqDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and AppNavaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
The fund: Jet Venture 1 targets industrial B2B startups and plans to invest up to €50 million, focusing on later-stage firms with a working product and paying customers. Its portfolio has now grown to 11 companies.
Where the money went: GigaScan and Phantasma Labs each received €2.1 million, while Hermetiq took $750,000 and AppNava $1.8 million. GigaScan builds 3D optical quality-control systems for production lines; Phantasma Labs uses reinforcement learning and graph neural networks to generate production plans in seconds.
Why now? Executive director Kamil Levinský denies any deliberate acceleration. "It's mainly because several investments happened to come together at once and, entirely by chance, closed at the end of this summer," he said (translated from Czech).
What's the endgame? Founded in 1997, Jet Investment bets on central European industry, managing CZK 17 billion across four qualified-investor funds and holding companies such as 2JCPDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, LikovDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Náš ChlébDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The venture fund, launched two years ago, extends that focus into startups. "Investors who invest with us in private equity or in the real-estate fund are asking for this option. And so is the industry we operate in," Fait said (translated from Czech).
Geography: Most of the portfolio is meant to come from countries bordering the Czech Republic — a criterion only Phantasma Labs meets among the latest four. Levinský said the American and Swedish deals came exclusively through the firm's network of contacts.
The signal: A private-equity house best known for central European factories and industrial real estate is now channelling patient, industry-adjacent capital into venture bets, judging startups on where they could be in four to six years. It is a sign that industrial investors see software and hardware startups as a natural extension of their core business.
Read more: cc.cz
Image credit: jurvetson
