JIC — South Moravian Innovation Centre (Jihomoravské inovační centrum)

JIC was founded in 2003 as a joint venture of the City of Brno, the South Moravian Region and Brno's four public universities (Masaryk University, Brno University of Technology, Mendel University, and the University of Veterinary Sciences) to connect regional research capacity with company growth. It runs stage-specific programmes from early idea validation (ENTER) through scale-up support (PLATINN), operates two university-campus incubators, and administers innovation vouchers that pay SMEs to commission research from local university labs.

By its 15-year mark (2018) JIC reported having supported over 300 companies since founding, with combined annual revenues of roughly CZK 30 billion and around 6,500 people employed across its portfolio. The EU-cofinanced JIC Innovation Park (total investment €12.5M, of which €9.0M ERDF) had, by 2012, incubated about 100 companies employing 300 people (44% in R&D), which had launched 53 new products and generated €21M in turnover. JIC Ventures, its regional seed fund launched with roughly CZK 400M (~€16.3M) in capital, targets about 20 CEE startups with tickets of up to €1M; JIC reports client company exits over the past five years with a combined value exceeding €41M. Notable alumni include Kiwi.com, Y Soft, Flowmon Networks, Safetica and Sewio.

Caveat: JIC's headline figures are self-reported by the organisation and by EU project databases rather than independently audited, and the most complete aggregate numbers date to 2012 and 2018 — no consolidated recent (2023–2025) annual report with updated totals was found. An original 2012 EU-funded target of '5 globally leading companies and 2,000 jobs by 2015' could not be verified as met or missed in any available follow-up evaluation.

Read the full analysis: https://openhousebrno.cz/en/south-moravian-innovation-centre-jic