How to Startup: Polish government receives proposals on how to support startups

A new fund is launched - Sunfish CEE II

Sunfish Partners , an early-stage VC fund based in Warsaw and Berlin that invests in Polish deeptech startups, is launching its second fund, Sunfish CEE II. The fund’s founders intend to continue investing in Pre-seed and Seed rounds. They will focus on financing startups in the healthcare, data, space, and defense industries. Ticket sizes range from EUR 250,000 to EUR 500,000. The fund also provides follow-ons of up to EUR 1 million. Sunfish CEE II will operate within a larger geographical area than its predecessor. The newly established fund is to be available to countries in Central and Eastern Europe. It is assumed that as much as half of the investments in this fund will come from outside Poland. Sunfish Partners is to announce its first investment in the Czechia soon.

Sunfish Partners made 17 investments with their first fund, including cybersecurity startup 1Security, healthcare startup Aether Biomedical, and space technology company Liftero. They also had 2 successful exits: Perfops and Alphamoon.

Money flows those who solve problems

Revoize, a startup specializing in noise reduction and speech enhancement technologies, has raised over PLN 2 million in a Pre-seed round. The company was invested in by AIP Seed fund and Marcin Zukowski.

Closer Music (IMS), a company producing its own music databases, has obtained PLN 4 million in funding from private investor Krzysztof Bajolek, CEO of Answear.

Animalhotels, the creator of an app for booking pet care services, has raised PLN 1.08 million in an investment round. At the same time, the startup debuted on the British market.

Pogaduszki, the owner of a speech therapy platform combining AI with gamification, has secured funding from Simpact Ventures and SMOK VC. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed.

Juo, owner of Juo Subscriptions (a workflow-based toolkit for D2C eCommerce brands), has acquired new investors – SMOK Ventures fund and business angels: Marek Ransford, Maciej Zawadzinski, and Marek Gut. The amount of funding was not disclosed.

Warsaw Equity Group, along with SmartCap (an Estonian sovereign fund), have invested in Estonian climate technology company UP Catalyst. The startup raised EUR 2.36 million for an industrial reactor pilot project.

Ministry of Digital Affairs invests money in quantum computer

Work has begun on the first Polish quantum computer based on ion traps. The Ministry of Digital Affairs announced that it will co-finance the purchase of the EuroQCS-Poland quantum computer. This project is a joint initiative of Polish and European institutions .

The development of quantum technologies in Poland is to accelerate thanks to the EuroQCS-Poland quantum computer. Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski emphasized that quantum computers can significantly increase efficiency in areas such as medicine, cryptography, finance, and artificial intelligence , giving research institutions and commercial entities a competitive advantage. The quantum computer will primarily serve scientists, representatives of industry, and the public sector from all over Europe.

The computer will be installed in the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PCSS) and will start operating in mid-2025.

Polish technologies conquering space industry The space industry is becoming more and more visible on the map of the Polish startup ecosystem, especially in recent years - this is the conclusion of the "Space and Aero 2024" report , published by Startup Poland. In 2012, there were about 30 Polish companies in the space industry and, in just over a decade, that number has grown to about 330. Roughly 150 of these companies are directly, actively involved in European Space Agency (ESA) projects.?

An important factor that has influenced the development of the space sector in Poland in recent years was a change in the approach of participants in the sector. In the past, it was dominated by scientists , especially physicists, focusing on the observation of space objects, resulting in an underestimation of the economic aspects and services aimed at a wider audience. The Polish space sector is now increasingly focused on business, often implementing ambitious projects. The “Space and Aero 2024” report can be downloaded from the foundation’s website. The publication is a study that brings together the most important data on Polish startups from two sectors – the aero industry and the space sector.? ?

Alphamoon acquired by American Box

The American company Box has acquired the Polish startup Alphamoon , which specializes in document processing technology based on artificial intelligence. The startup combines advanced language models with its own OCR (Optical Character Recognition) solutions. Alphamoon is the creator of the Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) system. The Polish technology will be used to develop the Intelligent Content Cloud platform, managed by Box. As a result of this acquisition, Box has gained a complete end-to-end solution, unlike providers focusing solely on IDP.?

Alphamoon was founded by Adam Gonczarek, Norbert Raus, and Pawel Swi?tek. In 2022, the startup raised PLN 10 million (PLN 4 million in the Seed round and PLN 6 million in grants from DIP and NCBR). The company's clients are medium and large enterprises, primarily from the financial sector (including Santander Bank Polska, Pekao S.A., and PGNiG).

Polish startup ecosystem offers solutions to authorities

The Startup Poland Foundation, along with startup representatives, investors, organizations and corporations, developed a strategy for startups which it presented to the Ministry of Development and Technology. This was the result of workshops that the foundation conducted in recent weeks at the Google for Startups campus in Warsaw. Over 60 people took part.

The document contains proposals for actions necessary to stimulate innovation in Poland . These are: 1) Support for the foreign expansion of Polish startups; 2) Creation of a stable tax system and a system of incentives for investors; 3) Strengthening startup financing and revising public institutions to support startup development; 4) Defining the role of the academic community in the innovation ecosystem and strengthening cooperation between startups and universities; 5) Strengthening regulatory sandboxes and facilitating startups' access to them; 6) Definition of a startup and scale-up; 7) Popularization of a simple joint-stock company as a legal form for startups; 8) Strengthening the role of local government, special economic zones, and science and technology parks; 9) Support for talent acquisition; 10) Establishment of a public institution dedicated to the startup market and an innovation council.

ChargeEuropa

ChargeEuropa is a Polish startup based in Poznan, specializing in electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Their innovative solution combines digital out-of-home advertising with EV charging stations.

In August, the company successfully completed a Pre-seed round (the transaction amount was not disclosed). The capital raised has secured funding to expand into new markets, further solidifying its position as a leading player in the CEE EV charging sector. The investment was led by Paris Shift4Good Fund, with participation from Simpact Ventures, MobilityFund, ARC Capital Markets, and Canard Ventures. The company's goal is to expand into new markets, strengthening its position as a leading player in the electric vehicle charging sector in CEE.

ChargeEuropa (formerly ChargePolska) was founded in 2018 by Euan Wheatley and Matt Tymowski. This startup has partnered with Polenergia, a Polish private energy group, to power some of its chargers with green energy.

Want more??Read our report "Corporations appreciating the potential of startups - volume II of cooperation between corporations and startups” !

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? The Startup Poland Foundation is a think tank working for the development of technological entrepreneurship and the development of startup financing infrastructure. They represent the interests of technology entrepreneurs in dialogue with the Polish public administration, European Union institutions, corporations and the academic community. One of the foundation's activities is issuing reports that show how the Polish startup market is becoming more and more professional. The reports can be viewed in English free of charge at?startuppoland.org/en