Thank you all!

Thank you for four beautiful years together and for the support of hundreds of organizations and over 20 thousand people who had participated in the event or supported our community in various forms.

Our adventure with Wolves Summit is not exactly coming to an end; its entirely new chapter has just begun.

At the beginning of 2015, our situation was tough. We were running a project (a technological startup) that did not receive financing. Despite assurances from the person running us on the side of the fund, we did not receive the promised amount of funding, and we faced a challenging task. We had fixed costs at the level of several hundred thousand and over 1 million in personal debt. We have committed to the startup because we believed that our project would spark. Almost at the same time, a person important to us was diagnosed with lymphoma (a severe type of cancer), which resulted in her company collapsing. We needed to help her get out of financial trouble and support her in the recovery. The next tens of won or lost battles were about to absorb hundreds of thousands of zlotys.

That’s how Wolves Summit was born. 

The event, which initially intended to support the development of our startup, had to transform and take a different dimension. We created it in just a few hours. First, a concept. We rely on the existing schemes on the market. We improve them. We have virtually no relationship with the technology industry, which will soon result in us struggling with thousands of small and large things that we did not know about yet.

We set a goal.

We write down the detailed project plan.

We enter a murderous and exhausting execution of the project.

Everyone in the team knows that the goal is damn ambitious, and besides us, few people believe in it. Even some people from the Technology Park, where we have headquarters and where we organize the first edition of the event, throw us logs shifting the event date by two weeks at the last moment. Not to mention the process of contracting with the administration. Now we can laugh at it, but back then, when because of this change, we could lose everything, we were not laughing. I do not hold any grudges. I want to point out that if you have an idea and you see that it's good, it does not mean that everyone will run to help you. 

Among the few people who believe in us is Micha? Rybak (then the leader of the promotion department). He trusted us and allowed us to show Gdynia and Poland in the international arena. The country, which at that time was associated with neither new technologies nor innovations.

We raise the bar.

The light shines on us in the private sector. We acquire international partners in just a few months. The main partner and sponsor of the event are TVN Ventures (the then fund created by the TVN Group) together with ProsiebenSat1. In our wildest dreams, we would not think that we could rise that high the first time around. That is, we believed, but winning such a well-known brand as the main sponsor has exceeded our expectations. We sell the planned number of tickets. Ninety-six startups from all over the world join the event. They come from as far as the United States, Canada, Argentina, Spain and dozens of other countries. Over 60% of startups are from abroad. Over 1300 people take part in the event. The Technology Park is bursting at the seams.

We finish building the last exhibition stands at 5:45 am. The first exhibitors come at 7:00 am. For us it means that extremely challenging, but also damn fascinating three days have just begun — a beautiful adventure. Part of the team has been practically sleeping in the office for the last few days; on the third day, some have only managed to shower in the Technology Park. We require way more than we should from our team, but even more from ourselves. We carry things, screw the screws, run with trash bags. Few will withstand such a high pace, the need to make difficult decisions and will stay with us till today. We do not know yet that Wolves Summit will have a mini-series made by TVN, we will be able to attract so many foreign funds and institutions investments in Poland and the region. 

Wolves Summit is growing to the scale of a recognizable event not only in Europe but also in the world and fights for participants in the Event Champions League with brands such as Web Summit or Slush. We are small but very brave. We stick together. We are building a well-coordinated team that can support itself in crises and celebrates successes. In this way, we become one pack.

The event reaches a scale of 2,500 attendees, hundreds of partners, cooperation with international organizations, embassies, public institutions, ministries and generates stable 7-digit revenue on each edition. We sell one of the most expensive tickets in the industry because we understand the value we give, and so do our clients.

The moment when you reach the stage where you have over 20,000 clients, whom you can not offer more than a conference, and feel that you should be, is the moment when you should ask yourself: Do I want to go further in this direction? If not, is there anyone who can do it better? At the moment when such an opportunity appears, we are bringing Wolves Summit to the market and the tools we have developed with a focus on combining startups, investors and corporate innovation departments - Wolves Match. 

For several months we have been looking for an organization that, thanks to its experience and a vast network, will develop Wolves Summit further and, using its capabilities and potential, scale it abroad.

Wolves Summit is not just a conference. It's a community built around the brand and a mission to connect startups, investors and companies interested in innovation. Upon the creation of the brand in 2015, we have decided that we will consciously develop it for the next four years. Our goal was to build an international conference dedicated to new technologies. Wolves Summit has hosted thousands of startups from almost 70 countries. We are convinced that the new owners will provide the participating startups with an even better opportunity to reach investors at the Seed, Early Stage stage and next investment rounds, and investors find a valuable project and expand the network among Venture Capital. Wolves Summit is being taken over by the international syndicate of business angels. It's going to be led by Martin Ring, a very well-known person in the Polish market, primarily due to his extensive experience in the financial industry. He co-created, among others BZ WBK in Poland, successfully introduced BNY Mellon to Poland, and held the position of Vice-President of ABSL (Association of Leaders of Business Sector Services). 

We have received several proposals to purchase Wolves Summit. 

We chose the one that we think will most effectively develop the project. We wanted a partner who would not only strengthen the leading position in Central and Eastern Europe but also introduce the project to foreign markets. Wolves Summit is thousands of pages of documentation, sales, marketing and logistics procedures and best practices, and a ready-to-use process for the implementation of subsequent events. This is a huge undertaking, but we are convinced that the new owners, with our support and using their contacts, will develop Wolves Summit and allow thousands of people to establish valuable business relationships.

Our next business challenge will be the scaling of the Evenea brand, in which we cover 93,25% share, buying it from the existing shareholders. 

We want to use the knowledge we have accumulated during the organization Wolves Summit, and the largest festival for online creators in Poland See Bloggers ?ód? (which during the last edition generated over 100 million organic online coverage). Our goal will be to develop the Evenea system and to create a detailed workspace for event organizers so that they can organize even more spectacular events.

A huge thank you to tens of thousands of people who trusted us by taking part in the Wolves Summit. We are convinced that the new organizers, thanks to their knowledge and our support, will create an even more effective event.

We are not saying goodbye.

We will meet with you on the 10th edition. This time we as well will take up the role of participants and will finally have the chance to use the Wolves Summit and schedule several dozen business meetings every day.

Special thanks go to people who helped us to reach the place where we are.

Jan Wykrytowicz and Christian Antig for believing in us when no one knew us and for joining the first edition of Wolves Summit as a Main Partner with TVN Ventures and ProSieben,

Jacek Czeladko for his support in understanding the realities of being entrepreneurs and growing our own business, for believing in our competences and always being there for us, 

Asia Skar?yńska for her logistical support during first editions in Warsaw. 

Special thanks to those who have been helping and supporting us for years: Pawe? Swierczynski, Witold Bre?, Maciej Sadowski, Basia Sobowska, Marcin Jatczak, Maciej Filipkowski, Arkadiusz Regiec, Ahmad Piraiee, Péter Kovács, Filip D?bowski, Marta Koziarska, Jacek Maciuszonek, Szymon Mielewczyk, Grzegorz Ciosek and ?ukasz Owczarek.

To the Great Pitch winners, especially: Paul Bojarski, Benjamin Bilski, Tomasz Plata, Grzegorz Wójcik.

To Investors who support and recommend us, especially: Chris Kobylecki & the whole team of Innovation Nest, Kinga Stanislawska, Marcin Kurek, Marcin Zabielski, ?ukasz ?wiercz, Agnieszka Poznańska, Monika Synoradzka, Micha?, Rokosz, Pawe? Maj, Chris Haley, Patrik Backman, Jan Habermann.

To the City of Warsaw, especially: Ma?gorzata D?browska i Agnieszka ?odygowska,

to Micha? Rybak, Pawe? Danielewski, Piotr Majewski, Piotr Bucki, Piotr Król, Artur Jab?oński, Magdalena Paw?owska, Kamil Dunowski, Micha? Dunowski, Krystian Zawistowski, Maciej Jutrzenka, Bartosz Marciniak for their support and valuable and inspirational business tips.

And to all the people who have ever joined Wolves Summit and to our incredible Wolfpack without whom we wouldn’t get to this place and take up another challenge. We know we will achieve a lot having you on board. 

It would be impossible to mention everyone here without making it a hundred-pages-long list. If we don’t mention you here, we will thank you personally the next time we see each other. 

We wish you all the best, until next time!

#oneofthewolfpack