Venture Capital in Central and Eastern Europe: A Decade of Opportunity

The starting point for this publication was the author’s doctoral research on Polish, as well as Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Eastern European venture capital markets; providing an overview of how venture capital investment has emerged and evolved in the post-communist economies over the past decade of socio-economic transition.

Notwithstanding enormous systemic asymmetries at the outset, venture capital has, since the collapse of communism, become an established corporate finance instrument in all Central and Eastern Europe, CEE. Its growing popularity has owed as much to a unique flexibility vis-à-vis more traditional financiers active in the emerging markets (i.e. stock exchanges, bank lending, corporate debt issuance) as to a relatively high sophistication and under-valuation of intangible assets across CEE (from innovative information technology applications to pioneering research projects in life sciences).

The book is meant as a universal guide to venture capitalism in CEE and is expected to attract a broad readership: from a seasoned, globally orientated venture capital ‘cherry-picker’ contemplating expansion or diversification into CEE, to a local entrepreneur seeking “smart capital” from funds operating in the region, to a complete layman wondering what venture capital in CEE might be all about.

The book’s structure will address the historical development and current scale of venture capital investment in the region (driven, on the one side, by the pace of macro- and micro-economic restructuring and European Union convergence, high technology innovation and diffusion and, on the other, gradual improvement in corporate governance standards and reduction of inherent risk).

The principal information sources will combine data obtained from pan-European, regional and national venture capital associations, statistical bureaux, international economic organisations and academia.