Top 25 most active Polish VC funds in 2022

According to the Inovo Venture Partners report, there are 66 local venture capital investment companies in Poland that have been actively investing during the last two years. In the first and second quarters of 2022, together with 128 international investment firms, they provided a total of €480.7 million in 191 rounds to Polish startups, breaking the previous year’s record.

AIN.Capital has created a ranking of the most active Polish VC funds in 2022.

The ranking includes 25 local backers that together made 93 investments during January 2022-July 2022. LT Capital, SMOK Ventures, Movens Venture Capital, and Market One Capital topped the list by closing 33 deals.

Methodology

To create the ranking, we analyzed the investment activities of all 66 active Polish VCs for the period from January 2022 to July 2022 and chose those that made one or more investments in startups this year. Relying on open source information, as well as Dealroom.com and Crunchbase data, we selected 25 local companies that have led or joined at least one round in the seven months of 2022.

The ranking consists of profiles of the 25 most active Polish VC funds and provides information on the number of investments they made in total and within the period mentioned above, funding focus, ticket sizes, management team, and recently closed deals.

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1. LT Capital

LT Capital is a Krakow-based seed fund that supports products and services providers that contribute to Industry 4.0 development. It plans to invest in around 40 companies in Central and Eastern Europe, with Poland being the main site of our investments, in the upcoming years.

Recent investments: Labplus, Hydropolis, Fizen.

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2. SMOK Ventures

SMOK is a Polish-American venture capital firm. As the fund claims, it is aimed to help early-stage startup founders build multi-million-dollar global software enterprises from Poland and CEE. Vue Storefront, inStreamly, and Stepapp are among its portfolio companies.

Recent investments: Bitskout, Heroify, ExplodedView.

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3. Movens Venture Capital

Movens VC is a Warsaw-based early-stage firm investing in tech startups with global potential. As the fund claims, it focuses on the companies that will revolutionize traditionally large industries, mainly through the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in process automation. Preferred business models are marketplace and SaaS.

Recent investments: Talkie.ai, fyrtel.market, Pixblocks.

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4. Market One Capital

Market One Capital is a Warsaw-based venture capital firm that prefers to invest in early-stage tech startups building B2B, B2C, P2P marketplaces, digital platforms, and SaaS solutions across Europe. The fund invests both as a lead investor and as part of the bigger syndicate. Its portfolio includes Docplanner, Brainly, Booksy, Preply, and Tier Mobility.

Recent investments: More Growth, Symmetrical.ai, Mindgram.

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5. Inovo Venture Partner

Inovo Venture Partners backs early-stage, post-traction startups with up to €3 million of initial investment and helps them build global brands while driving the growth of the local startup ecosystem. Booksy, Tidio, Infermedica, Zowie, and Preply are among its portfolio companies.

Recent investments: More Growth, Zowie, Tidio.

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6. bValue

bValue is an early-stage VC that started its first fund in 2016. Since then, it has become the first institutional investor in companies such as Tidio, Purella, PushPushGo, Senuto, Fluentbe, YourKaya, Deligoo, and many others. To date, bValue has under its management seed and growth funds of total €100 million dedicated to fast-growing tech-enabled and sustainable companies with a focus on B2B SaaS and e-commerce.

Recent investments: More Growth, Aggero.

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7. OTB Ventures

OTB Ventures invests in B2B tech startups and early-growth-stage companies based in the CEE region or with a strong regional footprint. According to the fund, the key factors it considers are the companies’ potential for high growth and their willingness to scale internationally.

Recent investments: TurnKey Lender, kevin., ICEYE.

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8. CofounderZone

Started in 2019, CofounderZone is a Warsaw-based generalist fund that unites a group of private investors working in a wide range of industries. It focused on companies that have a defined product and generate early revenues or are characterized by dynamically growing traction. CofounderZone’s strategy includes deal-by-deal co-investments in the proportion of 50% of funds provided by CofounderZone and 50% provided by business angels.

Recent investments: fyrtel.market, Altera.

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9. Czysta3.VC

Launched in January 2019, Czysta3.VC is an early-stage fund that invests mainly in the seed or pre-seed stages by putting an initial PLN 1 million. The common elements that connect all startups in the portfolio are software and the internet as the main field of activity.

Recent investments: Electronic KYC, SAT, R.S.O.M. 

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10. Innovation Nest

Innovation Nest is a Krakow-based venture capital fund that invests in top European teams building B2B SaaS businesses within various disciplines and sectors. The fields it rates most highly are martech, fintech, hardware management, video communication, HR, travel, biotech/medtech, and supply chain marketplaces.

Recent investments: Stream Sage, Enso.

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11. Sunfish Partners

Sunfish Partners is an early-stage VC firm with offices in Warsaw and Berlin, investing in Polish deeptech startups with global ambitions. It seeks to make investments in B2B business models and software.

Recent investments: Deepflare, Pergamin, Alphamoon.

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12. Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder VC

Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder is a venture capital fund and an experienced venture builder, co-creating thriving global tech businesses. It invests in early-stage projects focused on innovative industries and emerging technologies. The fund currently has more than 40 companies in its portfolio, including Booste, GeekForce, and GRID.

Recent investments: Rating Capital, Selmo.

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13. SATUS Starter VC

SATUS Starter is a venture capital investment company focused on early-stage investments. Since its launch in 2007, it has invested in over 50 startups, and the Polish behavioral data analytics platform Synerise is one of them. As SATUS Starter claims, it also supports the startups in global expansion onto foreign markets and attracting next-round investors, particularly strategic ones.

Recent investments: Talkie.ai, Alphamoon.

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14. Kogito Ventures

Kogito Ventures is CEE-focused early-stage VC fund operating in a venture-on-demand model. It builds syndicates with Angel Investors and often co-invest 50/50 with them and with other funds.

Recent investments: simpl.rent, Amano, Linker Cloud.

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15. FundingBox Deep Tech Fund

FundingBox Deep Tech Fund is a Warsaw-based firm that provides funding to companies with clearly defined ideas, cooperative teams, and technological advantages on their side. Starting in 2020, the fund has been offering investment to early-stage European startups in industries ranging from deeptech to insurtech and Web3.

Recent investments: Talkie.ai, Pergamin, Quantee.

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16. SpeedUp VC Group

SpeedUp Group is a group of venture capital firms that invests in companies at the early stages of development, especially those entering foreign markets and scaling there. It cooperates with founders within the investment horizon of three to eight years. The group is interested in technologies like Machine Learning, Picture Recognition, and AI. 

Recent investments: Hintech, Solytic, CYCLE.

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17. ATMOS Ventures

ATMOS Ventures is a US-Poland-based firm focused on investing, nurturing, and growing seed and Series A-stage European and North American startups with the potential to become global players. Specifically, the fund focuses on developers of “deep technologies” for large enterprise applications. ATMOS Ventures also specializes in the commercialization of scientific R&D through its global partnerships with universities, governments, and multinational corporations.

Recent investments: 4Trans Factoring, Solvemed Group.

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18. Montis Capital

It’s a Warsaw-based venture capital fund helping startups with great teams, scalable business models, innovative and already market-validated products to expand and grow capital. The fund focuses on two sectors: Industry 4.0, investing in robotics, AI, IoT, Big Data, and Life Science, including biotech, pharmaceuticals, and healthtech.

Recent investments: Talkin’ Things, Fresh Inset.

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19. Black Pearls VC

Black Pearls VC is a Gdańsk-based fund with a focus on deeptech startups working across various sectors within globally-relevant niches or markets. It has a successful track record of investments in areas such as digital health, enterprise software, fintech, and others.

Recent investments: simpl.rent.

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20. Alfabeat

Alfabeat is an early-stage fund for Enterprise SaaS companies from Central and Eastern Europe, with a track record including a unicorn startup. The fund invests in companies with formed products, technology, and early revenue from large enterprise customers, striving to make a global impact. Alfabeat also supports portfolio startups with expertise from active board members and advisors.

Recent investments: DRUID.

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21. Next Road Ventures

Next Road Ventures is a Warsaw-based early-stage VC company. It primarily focuses on CEE-based startups in Saas and marketplace verticals but is also open to opportunities across all sectors and industries. Apart from capital, portfolio companies are provided with support tailored to their current business needs and goals from the fund’s affiliates: CEE Business Angel Network, deal flow platform Vestbee, a global network of VCs and corporate partners.

Recent investment: Amano.

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22. Arkley Brinc VC

Arkley Brinc VC provides venture capital for hardware and IoT early-stage startups in Poland, helping them grow from prototype to IPO. On top of investment, the fund enables its portfolio projects to validate their products, connects them with distributors, and introduces them to its partners in Silicon Valley and Great Bay Region. 

Recent investment: Irmatiq.

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23. Pracuj Ventures

Pracuj Ventures is the first corporate innovation fund in Poland and one of the first in the CEE region to focus on investing in HR Tech and L&D tech areas. It is co-owned by the Polish Pracuj Group. Pracuj Ventures invests in early-stage companies that have already found their first commercial clients. The fund’s portfolio includes Gamfi, Gymsteer, Inhire.io, Kadromierz, SeniorApp, Sherlock Waste, Wandlee, and Worksmile.

Recent investment: PeopleForce.

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24. TDJ Pitango Ventures

TDJ Pitango Ventures is a Polish-Israeli venture capital fund that invests in technologically innovative startups with global potential. It invests using the smart money formula and supports the founders in scaling their startups globally. The fund’s growing portfolio includes Tylko, CallPage, and StethoMe.

Recent investment: Neptune.ai.

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25. RTAventures VC

RTAventures VC invests in online businesses at their early stages with a special focus on healthcare-related products and business models like SaaS (software-as-a-service) and marketplaces. Its portfolio includes such notable investments as DocPlanner, Typeform, Boosky, Preply.

Recent investment: MNM Bioscience Inc.