Rockaway Ventures, a Prague-based European investment fund under the Rockaway Capital group, has closed its second fund at nearly €55 million to back late-seed and Series A tech startups, as Vestbee was informed. The fund is backed by Rockaway Capital, along with private investors primarily based in the Czech Republic.
- Founded in 2014 by Jakub Havrlant, Rockaway Ventures is a venture capital fund within the Rockaway Capital group, focusing on Central Europe and the DACH region, supporting startups across sectors such as retail and e-commerce, travel and hospitality, digital logistics, digital media, cybersecurity, defense, CleanTech, and PropTech.
- The firm has made several notable investments, including Apaleo, a German cloud-native hotel management platform serving clients like CitizenM and Limehome in over 15 countries, and CulturePulse, a US-Slovak startup leveraging AI for behavioral modeling and risk prediction.
- Rockaway Ventures Fund II has invested in 11 companies to date. Over the next three years, 60% of investments will focus on Central and Eastern Europe, with the remaining 40% targeting Western Europe and diaspora startups from Czechia and neighboring countries in the US. The fund supports startups from pre-seed to growth stages.
“We are currently seeing numerous investment opportunities in sectors significantly shaped by global trends and geopolitical developments. We are particularly interested in founders across Europe and the United States who are committed to driving growth and advancing their businesses through transformative technologies,” claims Dušan Zábrodský, General Partner at Rockaway Ventures.
- The current fund was launched in 2022 and is financed with about 25% from Rockaway Capital, the parent company of Rockaway Ventures, while the remaining capital comes from private investors, primarily based in the Czech Republic.
“We’re not just capital. We’re entrepreneurs ourselves – we’ve built companies, and we understand what’s around the corner. Founders working with us receive hands-on support in areas like international expansion and scaling,” General Partner at Rockaway Ventures, Petr Šmíd, commented in a press release.
