Polish startups as seen by foreign investors — the most active international VCs in our ecosystem

It leaves no doubt — Polish tech companies are getting better and getting noticed. Since the last few years, we got used to the fact, that international investors are more and more eager to support our local stars, helping them raise large rounds and expand globally.

Being right in the middle of our VC/startup scene and having all that in mind, we’ve decided to dig into the data and find out which foreign VCs have:
1. The most investments in Polish startups in total
2. The most investments in Polish startups in 2017–2019
3. Supported at least one Polish startup and are worth to mention

Fun fact: there were a few Polish startups that raised from top international VCs before it was cool — way back, Polish social networks have raised money from the likes of Global Founders Capital (Nasza-klasa in 2007), HV Holtzbrinck Ventures (ePuls in 2007) or Intel Capital (Grono.net in 2012).

Anyway, after some Crunchbase and PitchBook browsing, here’s the first one:

OK, we’ve also decided to include accelerators, as we hope to mention Plug&Play or Seedcamp might give a new cohort of companies some motivation to apply there + in most of the cases they also provide capital!

It’s also nice to see some of the best brands in Europe like Point Nine Capital, Enern, or 3TS, but also a global giant like Intel Capital. Small comment: Manta Ray is based in the UK, but might be classified as Polish by some.

Some of the transactions, however, happened many years ago, so a summary of the last 3 years might also come in handy, see below:

Few of them are obviously duplicated, but great funds (or accelerators) like Techstars, Credo, or Piton also pop-up. Some of them, like Sunfish and Finch are new funds raised with an initial focus on Poland and the CEE region — it definitely means more of such deals coming!
What’s also important to comment is that even though e.g. Piton Capital, a great UK marketplace investor, has only 2 Polish companies in their portfolio, they have supported them along the way in many rounds — a total of 7 transactions in those two. Same with Enern — 6 deals in 3 companies.

Lastly, this time not repeating the same funds as above, we’ve created a list of funds that either have a strong bet on Poland (measured by the share of PL companies in their total portfolio) or are, subjectively, worth to mention:

That looks well! With a small remark — some may say that e.g. Base and ICEYE are not Polish startups, but nevertheless we’ve decided to include them as they have Polish founders and roots.

Hate to repeat that again, but… we are certain, that this year's value of Polish VC/startup scene will cross 1 billion PLN mark. Add to that a couple of €20M+ (e.g. Booksy, Brainly) or even €80M rounds and in 2020 sourcing deals in Poland should be a no-brainer for foreign investors.

If you’re looking to raise a Late Seed / Series A round — reach out to us — we have a relationship with the majority of the funds listed above and we are happy to connect you (and co-invest) with them!

Thanks to Kacper Zambrzycki for helping me with collecting the data.