Top 16 biggest rounds in Poland [2022]

Last year has been difficult for the entire startup ecosystem. Due to macro factors such as rising inflation, increasing interest rates and growing geopolitical tensions, the global VC funding has plummeted after a record-breaking 2021 (30% and 25% decrease YoY in the US and Europe, respectively).

The Polish startup scene has, however, proven itself to be largely resilient to those factors, and outstanding startups can still generate widespread excitement, which translates into big founding rounds — the mega round raised by the frontrunner of this ranking, is definitely a proof of that.
While the magical barrier of USD 1B total VC investment in Poland has not been broken in 2022, the sheer amount of incredible founders we have had the opportunity to meet throughout the year makes us confident that it will not take long to reach this milestone (maybe in 2024?).

Before jumping to the list, as a bit of self-advertising, Inovo VC has invested in 3 out of top 10 rounds, and in 5 out of the top 15 biggest rounds!
The remarkable founders, who have decided to partner up with us, have all created amazing companies, which we believe have an enormous potential to become unicorns.

Okay, now, without further ado, here is the list of top 16 biggest rounds in Poland in 2022:

16. The Batteries

Round size: EUR 7.4M (Series A)
Date: June 2022
Investors: APER Ventures, JR Holding, EIT InnoEnergy, UAB Electronics System

15. Autenti

Round size: EUR 8.5M (Series B)
Date: September 2022
Investors: Innovation Nest, 3TS Capital Partners, Elevator Ventures, Black Pearls VC, PKO BP VC, Alior Bank, BNP Paribas

14. Zowie

Round size: EUR 13.8M (Series A)
Date: May 2022
Investors: Inovo VC, Tiger Global, Gradient Ventures, 10X Founders

“Zowie founders managed to turn company from Polish only clientbase to truly international within 12 months from our investment. This combined with great understanding of customer challenges and ability to translate this understanding into product solving them allowed them to raise series A with top US investors” ~ Michał Rokosz

13. Nevomo

Round size: EUR 14.8M (Series A)
Date: June 2022
Investors: EIC Accelerator

12. Symmetrical.ai

Round size: EUR 17.1M (Series A)
Date: August 2022
Investors: Inovo VC, Target Global, Global Founders Capital, Finch Capital, ParTech, Market One Capital

“Organizations are becoming more and more complex, which requires solutions that will facilitate their growing human resources management needs. Symmetrical has been consistently proving that it can increase some of the most pressing inefficiencies within the space, so we decided to partner up with the founders and help them expand.” ~ Tomasz Swieboda

11. Talkin’ Things

Round size: EUR 18.8M (Series A)
Date: May 2022
Investors: TDJ, Montis Capital, Prosegur

The 11th place in our ranking is occupied by Talkin’ Things, a producer of RAIN RFID and NFC standard tags. And yes, you are not alone in not understanding what this means exactly. To make things a bit simpler, the products offered by the company are micro tracking devices, with application in retail, logistics and IoT economy, where they can significantly improve the operational efficiency.

The round was led by TDJ, which also supported the startup in its seed round of $9.6M in 2019, and also included a previous investor, Montis Capital. Talkin’ Things will invest the raised capital in scaling up its production capacity and further development of its RFID technology.

10. Stonly

Round size: EUR 20.1M (Series A)
Date: January 2022
Investors: Accel, Northzone

Next spot — Stonly — it allows its customers to develop custom-made product walkthroughs such as onboarding checklists and interactive step-by-step guides that can be embedded into the customer support pages.

The round was led by Northzone, with co-investment from Accel, which was also the lead investor in Stonly’s $3.5M seed round. Both investors are incredible US funds, which previously invested in companies such as Spotify, Klarna, Trustpilot or Vinted.

9. Nomagic

Round size: EUR 20.6M (Series A)
Date: May 2022
Investors: DN Capital, Capnamic Ventures, Hoxton Ventures, Almaz Capital, Khosla Ventures, Manta Ray Ventures, FIEGE, European Investment Bank

Warsaw-based Nomagic is one of the first hardware providers on our list. The company develops intelligent warehousing robots for item handling, offered in a Robot-as-a-Service model. The company already has some notable clients, ranging from fashion, through e-commerce, to TPL providers; one of them includes Brak.ch, a Swiss-based “everything store”, similar to Amazon.

The investment follows the initial February 2020 seed round of $8.6M, and was co-led by Silicon Valley’s Khosla Ventures (investor in e.g. DoorDash, Square or Instacart) and Berlin-based Almaz Capital with participation from e.g. Manta Ray Ventures, fund launched by Sebastian Kulczyk.

8. Synerise

Round size: EUR 21.6M (Series B)
Date: May 2022
Investors: Carpathian Partners

Synerise is a B2B SaaS AI-driven platform which supports its clients with storing, processing and automation of all their data-related processes, through a no-code / low-code UX. The company has offices in Cracow, Warsaw and San Francisco and was recently named the 17th fastest growing tech company in Europe.

The round was led by Carpathian Partners, a CEE- and technology- focused VC fund, with participation from several business angels, bringing the valuation of the company to $92-$138M, according to DealRoom. The investment will allow Synerise to fund its expansion to the US, and to further develop its technology.

7. Tidio

Round size: EUR 23.4M (Series B)
Date: May 2022
Investors: Inovo VC, PeakSpan Capital, Rafał Brzoska

The seventh biggest round in Poland in 2022 was raised by Tidio, a CRM platform provider. The company offers an end-to-end solution for managing customer support and analytics, and allows integrations with platforms such as Shopify and Wordpress, and apps like Messenger and Instagram. The platform focuses mainly on SMBs, and differentiates itself with its simplicity in terms of implementation and structure.

The round was led by US-based PeakSpan Capital with participation from Inovo VC and InPost founder, Rafał Brzoska. Tidio plans to put the new capital towards its marketing efforts and expanding the workforce, as the company plans to hire 100 new employees over the year.

“Tidio in 3 years since our investment has delivered consistent growth of users combined with signifficant growth of ARPU. They used the covid related tailwinds in ecommerce very well” ~ Michał Rokosz

6. Infermedica

Round size: USD 30M (Series B)
Date: January 2022
Investors: Inovo VC, One Peak Partners, Karma Ventures, Heal Capital, EBRD

The sixth spot on our list, Infermedica, is a health tech startup which has developed a set of AI-powered software tools, which can be used to improve e.g. the triage and intake process. In turn, this increases the effectiveness of the treatment, efficiency of the providers and customer satisfaction.

The round was led by the London-based One Peak Partners, with participation from Inovo VC, EBRD and two other international funds — Karma Ventures, and Heal Capital. The current round brings the valuation of Infermedica up to $120-$180M, according to Dealroom.

While at seed stage Infermedica was top technology in their domain during 2 years since seed round they managed to build a very strong commercial position winning biggest global clients including i.a. Microsoft and Allianz and helping millions of patients ~ Michał Rokosz

5. SunRoof

Round size: EUR 28.5M (Series A)
Date: September 2022
Investors: Inovo VC, SMOK Ventures, Level2 Ventures, Alfabeta, Alantra, World Fund, Nordic Alpha Partners, L&G Capital, Jon Olsson

Founded by brothers Lech and Karol Kaniuk in 2013, SunRoof manufactures 2-in-1 solar roofs and facades that generate the electricity without having to install traditional photovoltaic modules.

The initial September round of €15M was led by Alantra (a Spanish Investment Banking and Asset Management firm), with participation from i.a. Inovo VC and SMOK Ventures. The round was however extended at year-end, with additional €13.5M investment from a syndicate of leading climate tech investors — World Fund, Nordic Alpha Partners and L&G Capital, bringing the total round size to €28.5M.

“We have initially decided to invest in SunRoof in 2021, since then the company has achieved tremendous growth, despite headwinds in supply chain. Raising this kind of rounds in such circumstances proves Lech is an absolutely top founder” ~ Michał Rokosz

4. Silent Eight

Round size: EUR 35.6M (Series B)
Date: February 2022
Investors: Wavemaker Partners, TYH Ventures, SC Ventures, OTB Ventures, HSBC Ventures, Aglaia

Silent Eight operates in the RegTech space, where it develops AI-driven compliance models for the world’s leading financial institutions.

The round was led by TYH Ventures, with participation from investors in the previous financing rounds — US-based Wavemaker Partners, SC Ventures (Standard Chartered investment business), and the only Polish fund among the investors — OTB. Silent Eight also attracted interest from one of its key clients — HSBC Ventures, venture arm of its namesake bank. The new investment brings the total funding of the company to $55M.

3. Vodeno

Round size: EUR 58M
Date: October 2022
Investors: NatWest Group

The third place on our list is occupied by Vodeno. The company is one of the leading Banking-as-a-service providers, offering financial, banking, credit risk management, foreign exchange and cloud engineering services.

The round was entirely covered by the NatWest Group, a British banking and insurance company. Can this even be called a VC investment then? Some would likely disagree, we have however decided to include it in the list, given the tech profile of the company, the minority stake acquired (18%) and the intended use of the funds (expansion).

2. Ramp

Round size: EUR 69.8M (Series B)
Date: November 2022
Investors: NFX, Mubadala Capital, Korelya Capital, Cogito Capital Partners, Balderton Capital

Another fintech in the top 3, Ramp is one of the pioneers in making the Web3 infrastructure easy and accessible. The company has developed a platform for frictionless crypto exchanges, integrated with legacy banking and mobile payment systems. It is also worth noting that the company has been able to collect this amount of funding, despite the ongoing crypto bear market.

The round was co-led by Mubadala Capital (sovereign wealth fund of the emirate of Abu Dhabi) and Korelya Capital (founded by Fleur Pellerin, French ex-minister of Innovation and Digital Economy, investor in e.g. Bolt), with participation from “pure VCs” — Cogito Capital Partners and Balderton Capital, one of the biggest VC funds in London. The round brings the post-money valuation of the company to $450M.

1. ICEYE

Round size: EUR 120M (Series D)
Date: February 2022
Investors: True Ventures, Space Capital, Services Group of America, Seraphim Space, Promus Ventures, OTB Ventures, Molten Ventures, Kajima Ventures, Chione, C16 Ventures, BAE Systems

Finally, the biggest round (some call these “megarounds”) in Poland in 2022 was raised by ICEYE, a Polish-Finnish company, led by the CEO Rafał Modrzewski. ICEYE is a microsatellite manufacturer, which has developed a breakthrough technology that allows for photoimaging in any weather conditions, both during the day and night — something that was not possible until a couple years ago. The technology has very wide applications, it was used for example in the Bahamas, when it was hit by hurricane Dorian, to map the extent of the flooding.

The round was led by a long-standing investor Seraphim Space, a global leader in the SpaceTech industry, with co-investment with other top funds globally — True Ventures (invested in e.g. Hashicorp, fitbit, Splice), Space Capital (Mobius Labs, Skywatch, bliq), Molten Ventures (N26, Revolut, Trustpilot) or C16 (VC arm of Advent International). The round has brought the total funding of the company to $313M.

Few fun facts:

• ICEYE is only the second mega round (EUR 100M+) in the Polish startup ecosystem, after the DocPlanner’s EUR 130M Series E round in 2021
• Out of the first 10 companies on the list, only 5 of them have their headquarters in Poland (Vodeno, Tidio, Synerise, Nomagic, Talkin’ Things)
• The CEOs of the companies in the list are evenly split between engineering / technical and business backgrounds
• The sectors with the highest number of transactions in 2022 were Health, Transportation and Internet Services, while the most popular business models were SaaS, Marketplace and Manufacturing