The first half of 2023 demonstrated a decrease in total investments by Polish venture capital funds. Out of over 65 local funds, the editors of AIN.Capital counted twenty that continued to invest in new projects within this period. For comparison, in H1 2022 we published the ranking of the most active Polish VC funds, which included 25 local backers.
These twenty include: Inovo.vc, SMOK Ventures, Black Pearls VC, Market One Capital, bValue, OTB Ventures, Ciech Ventures, SpeedUp Energy Innovation, CofounderZone, Sunfish Partners, Montis Capital, LT Capital, Movens Capital, Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder VC, Kogito Ventures, Next Road Ventures, Aper Ventures, YouNick Mint, Aligo Venture, and Simpact VC.
To create the ranking, we analyzed the investment activities of Polish VCs for the period from January 2023 to June 2023, referring to deals from our feed and datasets of several DaaS platforms. We counted only those agreements that are public. Investments that the fund, for example, counts in its track record, but does not name, were not included in the rating calculations.
To verify the available information, we conducted a survey among the funds. If the figures we had did not match the answers the funds gave, we asked for clarification and asked them to name all their investments. All funds are ranked according to the number of new investments they made in H1 of 2023. Some funds are not included in our fresh ranking, even though they did close the deals, but that were follow-ons. For example, Satus Starter made three follow-on investments and Arkley Brinc VC — one.
| Name | Managing partners | Average ticket size | Total investments | In H1 2023 / Follow-ons | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inovo.vc | Tomasz Swieboda | €1М-€1.5М | 32 | 6/4 |
| 2 | SMOK Ventures | Diana Koziarska, Borys Musielak, Paul Bragiel | $0.1M-$1M | 29 | 6 |
| 3 | Black Pearls VC | Marcin P. Kowalik | €0.1M-€1M | 39 | 3/2 |
| 4 | Market One Capital | Marcin Kurek, Marcin Zabielski | up to €2M | 39 | 3/1 |
| 5 | bValue | Maciek Balsewicz | PLN 4 M | 21 | 3 |
| 6 | OTB Ventures | Adam Niewinski | €0.75M-€7.5M | 29 | 3 |
| 7 | Ciech Ventures | Szymon Smyk | €0.5-2M | 4 | 3 |
| 8 | SpeedUp Energy Innovation | Bartek Gola | €0.45М | 12 | 2/1 |
| 9 | CofounderZone | Tomasz Golinski, Michał Sioda | up to €1 M | 13 | 2 |
| 10 | Sunfish Partners | Dr. Marcus Erken, Max Moldenhauer | €0.5М | 13 | 1/3 |
| 11 | Montis Capital | Lukasz Dziekonski, Wojtek Szwankowski, Tomasz Poninski | €1.5М | 9 | 1/3 |
| 12 | LT Capital | Łukasz Świercz, Tomasz Jastrzębski | €0.25М | 31 | 1/1 |
| 13 | Movens Capital | Artur Banach | $0.25M-$1M | 17 | 3 |
| 14 | Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder VC | Radosław Czyrko, Arkadiusz Seńko | up to PLN 3M | 37 | 1 |
| 15 | Kogito Ventures | Wojciech Niesyto | $0.25M-$0.5M | 27 | 1 |
| 16 | Next Road Ventures | Ewa Chronowska, Marcin Laczynski | up to €1M | 17 | 1 |
| 17 | Aper Ventures | Jacek Blonski | €1М-€5М | 7 | 1 |
| 18 | YouNick Mint | Dagmara Nickel, Rafał Roszak, Aleksander Kłósek | PLN 5M-PLN 12M | 22 | 1 |
| 19 | Aligo Venture | Łukasz Mańkowski | €0.2М-€0.5М | 23 | 1 |
| 20 | Simpact VC | Jacek Ostrowski | €0.5М-€2М | 29 | 1 |
Inovo.vc and SMOK Ventures topped the list by closing 12 new deals.
Inovo.vc added 6 new startups to its portfolio.
In the first half of 2023, Inovo.vc made 6 investments, 4 of which are follow-ons. €10 million round to Danish weight loss app Embla, and testing services, and €1 million for Moldovan edtech Bloomcoding are among its deals in H1 2023.
In August 2023, Inovo.vc launched a third fund with €100 million in assets to support between 20 and 30 startups from CEE. In total, Inovo.vc’s first two funds have backed over €45 million in more than 30 companies.
SMOK Ventures also closed 6 new deals in H1 2023.
SMOK Ventures made 6 investments in H1 of 2023. SMOK Ventures is one of the Polish funds that has started to support Ukrainian projects actively. In the first half of 2023, it added three Ukrainian startups — Finmap, Workee, and Masthead Data, to its portfolio. According to SMOK Ventures, three main things determined the choice: engineering talent pool, startup founding experience, and proximity to Poland.
In total, SMOK Ventures have made 29 investments since its launch in 2019. The fund invests from $100,000 to $1 million in early stage startups in Central & Eastern Europe targeting developer tools, AI, gamedev and b2b SaaS business model.
In 2022, AIN.Capital published the ranking of the most active Polish VC funds, which included 25 local backers. LT Capital, SMOK Ventures, Movens Venture Capital, and Market One Capital topped the list by closing 33 deals.
