It will focus primarily on promising young companies from the CEE region, which it will help to expand. Purple Ventures aims to invest over EUR 40 million, or more than CZK 1 billion, in the new fund, which, unlike the first one, is also open to external investors.
With the introduction of the new venture capital fund, the Purple group is following the success of its first fund, which has invested in companies such as Hedepy, Impact Hub, Tatum, Campiri, VOS.Health, Choice QR, and KardiAI since its launch in 2018, and has so far increased the value of the money invested by around 70%.
“Within Purple Ventures over the past six years, we have been able to identify several extremely interesting companies that have not only come up with a solution to a real problem but have also been able to present a workable business model and the ability to scale their business globally. However, we can see that the market potential is many times greater and that we can reach many more interesting opportunities with the help of external investors. Of course, as the number of companies invested grows, so does the chance that we will hit a number of startups that will significantly multiply their value while contributing to the competitiveness and prosperity of Central Europe. That is why we are opening the fund to external partners,” says Jan Staněk, co-founder and managing partner of Purple Ventures.
The external capital will help Purple Ventures to build a sufficiently large and diversified portfolio and at the same time significantly increase the chances of achieving its goals – to identify interesting companies in the promising CEE region, to help them to get into the first global business league and at the same time to contribute to the development of the economies of our region. The Purple Group is contributing approximately EUR 14 million of its funds to the fund as an “anchor investor”.
“We want to focus our investments on founders and teams that have a connection to the CEE region. CEE is a region with comparable economic performance to Benelux, Scandinavia, South Korea or Canada, for example. Moreover, it is already outperforming Western Europe in growth and has the added advantage of a broad base of technical, and engineering talent. If we also consider the current economic cycle, when liquidity in the venture growth investment market has dropped significantly. We now see a huge opportunity that we do not want to miss,” adds Jan Davídek, Partner of the Fund.
With EUR 40 million, Purple Ventures wants to invest in around 60 early-stage companies (in pre-seed and mainly in seed stage), primarily companies with proprietary software solutions that have global ambitions and often already generate first revenues. The main areas of interest for the new fund are the segments of digital health, modern energy, the so-called creator economy, information security, education, and e-commerce. Another important parameter for selecting a startup is whether it takes a “purpose-driven” approach, i.e. how committed its founders are to contributing to the development of society as a whole.
The co-founders of Purple Financial Group started their fin-tech business in 2007. Since then, the group has built from scratch several regulated financial market trading brokers, a payment institution, and a venture capital fund with equity capital and investments in over thirty entities. The Purple Foundation, a charitable organization, was also formed in 2018 and raises funds and regularly supports foundations with a portion of its profits. To date, the Purple Foundation has donated over 20 million crowns. The ambition of the newly launched fund is to raise the announced 40 million euros over the next 24 months, while also launching its first investments. The first divestments and exits are planned after 2028.
The co-founders of Purple Financial Group started their fin-tech business in 2007. Since then, the group has built from scratch several regulated financial market trading brokers, a payment institution, and a venture capital fund with equity capital and investments in over thirty entities. The Purple Foundation, a charitable organization, was also formed in 2018 and raises funds and regularly supports foundations with a portion of its profits. To date, the Purple Foundation has donated over 20 million crowns. The ambition of the newly launched fund is to raise the announced 40 million euros over the next 24 months, while also launching its first investments. The first divestments and exits are planned after 2028.
