Pale Fire Capital closes its first decade with a €413 million portfolio and plans to invest in family-owned businesses across Europe
According to its annual report published today, Pale Fire Capital closed 2025 with a private equity portfolio valued at CZK 10 billion. The group is now broadening its investment focus and plans to enter strong family-owned businesses in Central and Eastern Europe, including as a minority investor.
“2025 significantly reshaped the technology sector. The rise of AI challenged a number of established product models and tested companies’ resilience and ability to adapt. At the same time, it opened up new sources of growth, and for our portfolio it was a very successful year. We focused primarily on companies with the strongest potential for regional expansion and for strengthening their position in global markets. The value of our portfolio grew by 18 percent in 2025,” says Jan Černý, Managing Partner at Pale Fire Capital.
In 2025, regional expansion was driven above all by Aukro, which entered five new European markets, and ROUVY, which acquired the Spanish platform BKOOL and Australia’s FulGaz. ROUVY increased its subscriber base to 300,000 last year and strengthened its position as a leader in realistic indoor cycling.
The rise of AI models was also successfully leveraged by itrinity, particularly through UptimeRobot, the world’s most widely used website monitoring service, whose annual recurring revenue exceeded USD 10 million for the first time last year. The insurtech platform Mubi maintained its leading position in online insurance in Poland.
Groupon completed the first phase of its transformation last year and, under the leadership of Dušan Šenkypl, achieved simultaneous growth in revenue and transaction volume for the first time in a decade, while significantly strengthening free cash flow generation. Groupon is now undergoing a deeper rebuild into an AI-native company.
Pale Fire Capital now wants to apply its experience in operational and technology transformation beyond its traditional core focus.
“In its first decade, Pale Fire Capital focused on technology and e-commerce companies. Today, we see much broader potential for our capital, team and experience, particularly at the intersection of the traditional economy and digital technologies, where our capabilities are strongest,” says Jan Černý, adding: “We still want to be hands-on investors operating from the position of a majority owner. But in exceptional cases involving strong family-owned companies from our region, we are prepared for the first time to also act as a significant minority investor. We want the value of these companies to remain in Europe, and to help turn European champions into players with global reach. We are becoming an alternative that the market currently lacks: long-term capital that can also be minority capital, built around the ambition to create lasting value.”
A significant part of Pale Fire Capital’s activities in 2025 was also its support for public-benefit projects. The group and its founders donated more than CZK 120 million last year to charities and organisations addressing the systemic causes of social and regional inequality, the quality of education and the effective functioning of public institutions. Recognition of Pale Fire Capital’s entrepreneurial and philanthropic work came with the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Czech Republic award, which was awarded for 2025 to Dušan Šenkypl.
In addition to its private equity activities, the Pale Fire Capital group also includes an investment fund. The total value of assets under management amounts to EUR 2 billion.