In May 2019 together with Paul Bragiel and Diana Koziarska we announced the launch of SMOK Ventures. Our goal was to help top founders from the CEE region bridge the gap between Emerging Europe and Silicon Valley. …

Sometimes things just click. The moment I met Yuliia I knew she’s an exceptional founder who figured out a niche in a huge data observability market. I wanted to be part of her story. SMOK Ventures joined the $1.3M USD pre-seed round of Masthead, a Canada-based 🇨🇦 data observability startup…

It sucked.

Startup fundraising sucks, especially in late 2022. Venture capitalists are taking advantage of the bad economy. Delayed processes, not respecting the founders’ time, backing out of term sheets has become a norm, again. But if you are a venture capitalist on the verge of breaking bad, think again. …

I listen to 100+ pitches a month and invest in 1 startup on average. There are some things that founders say that make me instantly lose interest. Here are the 10 sentences that make me pass. 1. “Dear Sir / Madam” If your email feels like spam, it will be treated as such. …

Do you want to impress investors with your pitch deck? Make it short! The longer the deck, the weaker and less focused you seem to the VCs. The good thing? All you need are those 8 slides to land you a sweet pre-seed round💰. Yes, even in this market🐻. Slide 1. COMPANY NAME + LOGO + High Level pitch (one sentence) Tell…

2021 was a pivotal year for SMOK Ventures. 90% of our portfolio founders raised follow-on funding, we invested in 10 new startups, and we’re preparing for CEE expansion in 2022! We launched SMOK Ventures in late 2019 to help Polish and CEE-based founders better connect to Silicon Valley and Asia…

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. …

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…