I’ve been updating my Quora list of hottest Polish startups since 2011 and frankly this became a bit too much work for me to keep it fresh and stay unbiased. So I decided to change my approach this year and come up with a fully biased, personal list of my…

Big vision, successful repeat founders and technology that can literally save lives. There’s a lot to like in MX Labs, our most recent investment at SMOK.vc. Let’s break it down! The Vision In company’s own words: Most people around the world don’t have access to up-to-the-minute and readily-available diagnostics. Instruments are expensive…

Last updated: October 2021 SMOK Ventures launched in 2019 to disrupt early stage venture capital investing in the Eastern bloc by connecting top local founders with VC and tech leaders in Silicon Valley and Asia. Now the fund is expanding to Ukraine and the Baltics and the rest of CEE…

I’m proud and excited to announce that SMOK Ventures co-led the $1.5M seed round of Vue Storefront. Read the full article to find out why. What is Vue Storefront? Vue Storefront is setting the new standard in e-commerce by providing shopping experiences like native apps while boosting site performance. Technically it’s a headless frontend…

Poland is the seventh largest producer of games in Europe and 23rd worldwide. Two days before the release of Cyberpunk 2077 we’re bringing you the ultimate map of the game ecosystem in Poland. Can you see something weird on the map? Let us know! We’re working to fix any inconsistencies on the map here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_31WI98XLiMKYTbrm0wHuJbYslgiHPfLuVCtLvuz84s/edit) and will update the map once…

12 months ago we launched SMOK Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund bridging Central European startups to Silicon Valley and Asia. I’d like to give you an update on how we’re doing. Year 1 in Numbers We’ve reviewed just under 1000 startups and made twelve investments, eight of which are public as of…

Since launching SMOK in 2019 I’ve only had one goal in mind — to invest in every single globally successful startup founder coming out of Poland. We’ve reviewed about 1 thousand startups in the first 12 months of operation. inSTREAMLY is our third investment. …

Yay! We’ve just made our first deal as SMOK! We invested $520k in SmartHotel, a smart new way for guests to interact with hotels or Airbnb hosts through Messenger chatbot and SmartTV app. Here is why. 1. The People I could actually start and end here. This investment is first and foremost about…

If entrepreneurship is a state of mind that forces you to follow your dreams no matter what, my grandfather Roman Kala was a true entrepreneur, probably the largest I know. The story begins 90 years ago, in a small village, Miedzyrzec Korecki, Poland (now part of the Ukraine). I don’t…