Kaya VC Research
Investment Thesis
KAYA is an early-stage venture firm rooted in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Its stated focus is to back "ambitious and gritty founders from CEE, pre-seed through to meaningful scale." The firm describes its portfolio as teams "building at the frontier of digital, physical, and consumer economies." The pitch to founders is patient capital, entrepreneurial empathy, and a supportive network, with a small team that says it fights to help when pivotal moments arrive.
The ethos page centers on three ideas: rare people found early (exceptionally intelligent, relentless, high-integrity individuals, found in CEE before the evidence exists), staying together through adversity (a small team, not a platform), and the long game (most of the partners' own assets are invested in their funds, and results are measured in decades, not quarters).
Stage Focus
Pre-seed and seed are the core, with follow-on support into Series A and beyond for winners. The homepage lists the round as "Pre+Seed". Press coverage of Fund V describes investing from pre-seed to Series A across the CEE region.
Check Size
The site lists a ticket of $1-3M. Press coverage of Fund V describes initial cheques starting around EUR 1M. Follow-on reserves are used for portfolio winners.
Lead Tendency
The firm's materials do not state whether it leads. With initial tickets of $1-3M at pre-seed and seed, it likely leads or co-leads many first rounds, but this is not confirmed on the site, so lead tendency is recorded as unknown.
Recent Activity
KAYA announced a first close of roughly EUR 70M (about $81M) for its fifth fund, Fund V, in June 2025 (Vestbee, SeeNews). The website now lists a current fund of $85M. Founded in 2011 by the firm's own count, it reports $500M in total AUM and 60+ companies. Fund V is actively deploying. Recent portfolio names on the site include AI and agentic infrastructure companies such as E2B, Pen.dev, Viktor, TOPK, Superlinked, and Stormy, plus a cluster of bio and deep-tech companies such as Sensible (mRNA design), Frontier (biocomputing hardware), Allonic (3D tissue braiding), and Yoneda Labs (foundation models for chemists).
Portfolio Highlights
KAYA calls itself one of the earliest and most successful CEE VCs, with two home-grown unicorns, Rohlik (online grocery) and Docplanner (patient management SaaS). Other flagship companies: Better Stack (AI SRE and observability), Booksy (beauty SaaS and marketplace), Jutro Medical (AI primary care roll-up), Upheal (therapist platform), and Superlinked (multimodal data platform). Exits listed on the portfolio page include Dame Jidlo (food delivery), Eversports, Finiata, Slevomat, Twisto, Nestpick, Nautal, Letsbuild, ROI Hunter, CareSend, Ahoy Connect, and Masters. The page also marks several write-offs (RIP), which is unusually candid.
Team
- Karel Zheng, General Partner
- Martin Rajcan, General Partner
- Tomas Pacinda, General Partner
- Tomas Obrtac, General Partner
- Pavel Mucha, Partner
- Vasek Ryslink, Investor
- Vojtech Tomsu, Associate
- Natalia Rochminska, Associate
- Julie Hucikova and Klaudia Kristofova, Finance and Operations
Offices are in Prague, Warsaw, San Francisco, and London.
Decision Process
Four General Partners plus a Partner form a partnership. The site does not describe a formal process or timeline, so it is recorded as partnership with no timeline. There is a public pitch-deck intake form (Typeform) on the site, so cold inbound is accepted.
Founder Preferences
Founders from CEE (including diaspora and founders who relocate to the US or UK) who are intelligent, relentless, and high integrity. Testimonials emphasize that KAYA stays supportive and lets founders build. Teams are often technical, building AI, infrastructure, health, and deep-tech products, but the firm also backed consumer marketplaces and SaaS in earlier funds.
Geographic Focus
CEE is the center of gravity (Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, the broader region), with US and UK presence through San Francisco and London offices to support companies that expand there. Several portfolio companies are headquartered in the US, UK, Germany, and Spain.
Fund Structure Notes
Prior ET3 and ET4 sub-funds were supported by InnovFin Equity from the European Investment Fund, with backing from the European Commission under Horizon 2020 and EFSI.