Can Czech Startups Access the Capital They Need to Scale?

Source: European Startup and Scaleup Scoreboard

In 2026, the European Commission published the European Startup & Scaleup Scoreboard, comparing startup and scaleup ecosystems across the EU. The scoreboard showed that, unsurprisingly, larger economies such as France, Germany and Italy play a major role in the EU’s overall startup and scaleup activity in absolute terms. 
More importantly, the Scoreboard also revealed a broader European challenge regarding the global competitiveness of its startups. The EU is relatively successful at generating startup activity, but much less successful at turning startups into globally competitive scaleups. Access to finance, particularly at later stages of growth, is identified as the single most important bottleneck to scaling. Venture capital availability remains concentrated in a relatively small number of countries, while institutional investors such as pension funds and insurers are still largely absent from startup financing in much of Europe.
This gap becomes particularly visible when Europe is compared with global competitors. The EU records 0.79 unicorns per million inhabitants, compared with 5.20 in the United States. Ecosystem valuation is also equivalent to only 3.84% of EU GDP, compared with 13.1% in the United States and 11.24% in the United Kingdom.


Source: European Startup and Scaleup Scoreboard

What does the situation look like in Czechia and Prague?

Czechia’s overall position in the Startup & Scaleup Scoreboard is less than ideal. It falls into the “Catching-up” group and ranks in the lower half of EU Member States overall. Finance is one of the clearest weak points. In the Better finance dimension, Czechia ranks around 22nd (with a score of around 53.6 on the index) in the EU27, well below the EU average and far behind the leading countries. Estonia, for example, scores above 250, followed by the Netherlands, Finland, France and Sweden.

However, not everything is lost. It ranks 3rd in the EU for innovation-friendly regulation, where its performance has improved substantially since 2020, and 2nd for access to infrastructure, networks and services, also recording a notable increase over the five-year period. This suggests that while parts of the supporting environment have strengthened, access to growth capital remains a major gap.



Source: European Startup and Scaleup Scoreboard; Better Finance 
Prague provides a clear example of how this shortage of growth capital plays out in practice. Between 2015 and 2026, startups in Prague attracted around €3 billion in investment. Yet the annual figures show a highly uneven pattern. Investment peaked in 2021 and 2022, when the number of completed funding rounds also reached its highest level. Activity has slowed since then, although investment in Prague startups has continued.


Source: Dealroom; visualisation by the author
Note: Data for 2026 reflect the situation as of April 2026.

The structure of these investments makes Prague’s position even more distinctive. Compared with other Central European cities, the split between locally headquartered and foreign-headquartered companies is unusually balanced. In Berlin and Budapest, most investment goes to companies headquartered in the city itself. In Prague, by contrast, 52% goes to Prague-headquartered companies and 48% to companies headquartered abroad. This suggests that Prague generates strong startup activity, but a significant share of the capital linked to its ecosystem flows to companies headquartered elsewhere.


Source: Dealroom; visualisation by the author
Note: Data for 2026 reflect the situation as of April 2026.
The difference is also visible in deal size. Prague-headquartered companies complete more funding rounds, but those rounds are smaller on average. Foreign-headquartered companies attract fewer rounds, but at much higher values. This points to more limited access to larger growth-stage investments for companies that remain headquartered in Prague.

Source: Dealroom; visualisation by the author
Note: Data for 2026 reflect the situation as of April 2026.


Overall, the conditions for building and growing startups in Czechia have improved in recent years, but access to finance remains a key weakness. Prague shows that investor interest is clearly present. The bigger question is whether that capital can be converted into sustained, long-term growth for individual companies and for the ecosystem as a whole.