INDRC, a strategic partner of IP Lab Ventures, was represented at the launch in Prague. The announcement came from First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Karel Havlíček, alongside European Investment Bank (EIB) Vice President Marek Mora, who confirmed that the EIF, part of the EIB Group, is committing roughly CZK 656 million (€27 million) to the fund through the Czech National Recovery Plan. With additional private capital, IP Lab Ventures Fund I is targeting a total size of more than CZK 1.2 billion (€50 million), all of it earmarked for transferring technology out of universities and research institutions and into the market. The fund's focus reads like a map of where Czech research is already strong, including artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, robotics, smart mobility, biotechnology, and cybersecurity, with room to back promising work in semiconductors and advanced manufacturing as well. The goal is to support around 40 projects over the fund's lifetime, the large majority based in the Czech Republic and the remainder drawn from across Central and Eastern Europe.
Deputy Prime Minister Havlíček framed the fund as the piece that's been missing from the Czech innovation pipeline: the link connecting strong research coming out of Czech universities with the capital and business expertise needed to actually build a company around it. It's a gap the fund's managing team already has a track record of closing. According to Mora, the partners behind IP Lab Ventures have worked together since 2023 and helped seven technology projects through commercialization and spinoff formation in that time. The team has also spent recent months deepening formal partnerships with Czech universities and research organizations, work that will underpin how the fund sources and vets future deals.
Pavel Vinkler, senior director of the Ministry's Business and Digitalization Section, pointed to the fund's specific bet on digital technology, AI, and cybersecurity as a way to help emerging startups get their products to market faster and with stronger commercial potential. Filip Fingl, managing partner at IP Lab Ventures, described the mandate in similar terms: stepping in wherever Czech universities and researchers have the talent and the technology but lack the capital and commercialization experience to take the next step.
The fund was selected through a process the EIF launched in August 2025 and is the second venture capital fund financed through the National Recovery Plan's Fund of Funds instrument, which the Ministry entrusted to EIF management in March 2023. That instrument carries a total EU Recovery and Resilience Facility allocation of more than CZK 1.3 billion. With IP Lab Ventures Fund I now in place alongside an earlier investment in the Tensor Ventures team's fund, those Recovery Plan resources are now fully committed to Czech innovation-focused funds.
For INDRC, the launch comes as its partnership with IP Lab Ventures is already well underway. The two have been working together for some time, with a strategic Memorandum of Understanding in place since the summer, and have been jointly advancing the commercialization of promising research inline with INDRC and CLARA Exploitation strategy. INDRC and the fund intend to keep working hand in hand to turn excellent science into globally competitive companies, from surfacing early-stage research and jointly assessing how it can be matured and commercialized, to strengthening the wider deep-tech ecosystem across the Czech Republic and Central and Eastern Europe. That ambition reaches beyond the region too, with early efforts to build bridges to selected international markets and bring emerging technologies into the Czech ecosystem. For INDRC, it is a natural extension of its mandate to translate neuroscience, AI, and advanced computing research into real-world impact.
Photo credit: Ministry of Industry and Trade
Source:This article draws on the official press release issued by the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade
