Hottest Polish Startups in 2024

This is a fully biased, personal list of my favorite Polish 🇵🇱 startups that I also believe have a chance to become some of the hottest companies in the world in the coming years.

Even though the list is subjective, I did use some criteria to filter out companies. I’m only listing:

• private companies that are still controlled by their founders, i.e. not bought out by private equity firms,
• companies that are either based in Poland or have a strong connection to Poland, e.g. a mix of Polish founder(s), Polish investor(s) or the majority of staff based in Poland,
• tech companies with a scalable product and a business model focused on distributing this product, i.e. no service companies, infrastructure companies, software houses or agencies,
• companies with venture capital funding (not excluding bootstrapped companies completely, but I have less data on those and most are not as ambitious as their VC-funded counterparts),
• only companies operating globally or at least in other markets than Poland.

The Champions

These are the unicorns 🦄 (i.e. private companies worth over $1B USD) and the soonicorns (soon-to-be unicorns, hopefully, if things don’t go south, which they always can!) of the Polish startup scene.

• Docplanner — a booking platform and management software provider for doctors. Raised ~$140M USD from Enern 🇨🇿, One Peak Partners 🇬🇧, Target Global 🇬🇧, Goldman Sachs 🇺🇸, EBRD 🇪🇺.
• ICEYE — empowers others to make better decisions in B2B and B2G industries by providing access to timely and reliable satellite imagery. Raised over $250M USD from True Ventures, Space Capital, Services Group of America, Seraphim Space, Promus Ventures, OTB Ventures 🇵🇱, Molten Ventures 🇬🇧.
• Eleven Labs — the latest Polish unicorn, global leader in AI voice generation and text to speech. Raised a little over $100M from Sequoia 🇺🇸, A16z 🇺🇸, Credo 🇨🇿.
• Booksy — an online platform for finding and booking beauty and wellness appointments. Raised $120M from Open Ocean 🇫🇮, Piton 🇬🇧, Inovo 🇵🇱, Enern 🇨🇿, Manta Ray 🇵🇱.
• Brainly — an online learning platform where students and parents get homework and study help from peers and experts. Raised ~$150M USD from Point Nine Capital 🇩🇪, Runa Capital 🇱🇺, Manta Ray 🇵🇱, Learn Capital 🇺🇸, General Catalyst 🇺🇸.
• Uncapped — a provider of revenue-based financing that enables founders to raise growth capital without interest or equity. Raised $80M USD from GFC 🇩🇪, White Star 🇬🇧, Mouro 🇬🇧, All Iron 🇪🇸 and Seedcamp 🇬🇧.

The Challengers

Bored of the Booksy/Brainly/Docplanner mafia at the top? These are the challengers, the startups that grew significantly over the last few years, raised a lot of capital and are potential candidates to move up the ladder in the next 2–3 years.

• Ramp — crypto purchases as a simple SDK built for developers. Raised $70M+ from Mubadala Capital 🇦🇪, Korelya Capital 🇫🇷, Balderton 🇬🇧, NFX 🇺🇸, Firstminute 🇺🇸, Seedcamp 🇬🇧, MakerDAO 🌎.
• Packhelp — an online platform for creating and ordering custom-branded packaging in a web browser; raised $60M from investors like InfraVia Growth 🇫🇷, Portfolion 🇭🇺, Market One 🇵🇱, Profounders 🇬🇧, Speedinvest 🇦🇹 and White Star 🇬🇧.
• Vue Storefront — a lighting fast frontend for headless commerce funded by Felix 🇫🇷, Creandum 🇸🇪, earlybird Digital East 🇹🇷, Y Combinator 🇺🇸, SquareOne 🇩🇪, SMOK Ventures 🇵🇱 and Movens 🇵🇱 for a total of over $40M USD.
• Spacelift — an operator of a terraforming platform used to manage any cloud, infrastructure, or service. Raised $23.5M from Insight Partners 🇺🇸, Inovo 🇵🇱, Hoxton 🇬🇧 and Blossom Capital 🇬🇧.
• Silent Eight —a Singapore-based company with Polish founders and office developing AI-driven compliance models for finance. Raised over $35M from Wavemaker Partners🇸🇬, TYH Ventures 🇺🇸, SC Ventures🇸🇬, OTB Ventures 🇵🇱, HSBC Ventures 🇬🇧, Aglaia 🇪🇸.
• Sunroof — a start-up developing fully solar 2-in-1 roofs and façades as well as solutions to support smart energy management. Raised over $30M USD from Klima 🇪🇸, World Fund 🇩🇪, NAP 🇸🇪, L&G Capital 🇸🇪, SMOK Ventures 🇵🇱.
• tylko — a D2C furniture brand offering high-quality, perfectly fitting shelving that can be ordered in the easiest way possible. Raised $33M from TDJ Pitango 🇵🇱, Experior 🇵🇱, Evli Growth Partners 🇵🇱, G+J Digital Ventures 🇩🇪.
• infermedica — a leading digital health company specialized in AI-powered solutions for preliminary diagnosis and patient triage. Raised $30M from One Peak Partners 🇬🇧, Karma Ventures 🇪🇪, Heal Capital 🇩🇪, EBRD 🇪🇺, Inovo 🇵🇱.

The Rising Stars

They only recently started, but are already making waves in the global venture capital world with top funds fighting for allocation.

• Authologic — a system that helps businesses in checking the identity of their clients online. Raised from Y Combinator 🇺🇸, SMOK Ventures 🇵🇱 and angels.
• enso — a WYSIWYG data processing language. Raised over $18M from SignalFire 🇺🇸, Khosla Ventures 🇺🇸, Day One Ventures 🇺🇸, Decacorn Capital 🇸🇬, Y Combinator 🇺🇸, Samsung Next🇰🇷, Experior 🇵🇱, Innovation Nest 🇵🇱, Kima Ventures 🇫🇷, Black Pearls 🇵🇱 and Passion Capital 🇬🇧.
• Nomagic — smart pick and place robotic solutions for order fulfillment. Raised $20 from DN Capital 🇬🇧, Capnamic Ventures, Hoxton Ventures 🇬🇧, Almaz Capital 🇺🇸, Khosla Ventures 🇺🇸, Manta Ray Ventures 🇵🇱, EIB 🇪🇺 and Bitspiration Booster 🇵🇱.
• Synerise — behavioral data infrastructure driven by AI. Raised $22M from Carpathian Partners 🇵🇱.
• Cosmose — a data analytics platform that predicts consumers’ offline shopping behaviors. Raised $27M from Near Foundation, Founders Factory 🇬🇧, TDJ Pitango 🇵🇱, Experior 🇵🇱, OTB 🇵🇱 and Tiga Investments 🇵🇱.
• AI Clearing — Austin-based AI-powered autonomous construction progress tracking and quality control platform. Raised $16M from Prudence 🇺🇸, FJ Labs 🇺🇸, Tera Ventures 🇪🇪, Inovo 🇵🇱 and Innovation Nest 🇵🇱.
• Stonly — a software company that helps improve user satisfaction, activation, and retention while reducing support costs. HQ in France but most of the team and co-founders are in Cracow. Raised $20M from Accel 🇺🇸, Northzone 🇸🇪 and angels.
• Saleor — open-source ecommerce platform. Raised over $10M from Target Global 🇩🇪, Zalando 🇩🇪, Cherry Ventures 🇩🇪 and angels.
• Zowie — AI customer service suite built for ecommerce. Raised $14M from Tiger Global 🇺🇸, Gradient Ventures 🇺🇸, 10X Founders 🇩🇪, Inovo 🇵🇱.
• Tidio — Not another AI chatbot. Well, actually, it is, just better. Raised $23M from PeakSpan Capital 🇺🇸, Inovo 🇵🇱, Rafał Brzoska.
• Omnipack — full-stack fulfillment for ecommerce. Raised $6M+ USD from private investors, Nunatak Capital 🇵🇱 and SMOK Ventures 🇵🇱.
• MerXu — b2b marketplace for renewable energy by ex Allegro CEO. Raised $20M+ from Accel 🇺🇸, Prosus Ventures 🇿🇦, Point Nine Capital 🇩🇪.

The New Kids on The Block

This is the most subjective list of all as it includes companies which usually only raised a pre-seed or seed rounds, but for some reason I believe they will build something huge either because of the founders’ potential, the market or early traction and usually a combination of the three.

• Blank — new game studio by CD Project RED alumni working on a character-driven, narrative game set in a post-apocalyptic world collapsed by AI. Raised $17M USD from Neowiz🇰🇷.
• Contec — tire recycling startup. Raised over $16M USD from Vinci 🇵🇱, Pruszynski 🇵🇱 and Warsaw Equity Group 🇵🇱.
• KYP.ai — productivity optimization software based in Germany but run by Polish founders. Raised $19M from OTB Ventures 🇵🇱, 42cap 🇩🇪, Tola Capital 🇺🇸.
• Sky EngineAI — a synthetic data cloud for deep learning in vision AI. Raised $7M USD from Cogito Capital Partners 🇵🇱, Edge VC 🇬🇧 and Taiwania Capital 🇹🇼, Movens 🇵🇱 andHigh-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) 🇩🇪.
• Pathway — real-time analytics for data streams (think Fink or Spark but for real time data events). Raised $4.5M from Inovo 🇵🇱, Market One Capital 🇵🇱 and grants 🇪🇺.
• Plane (ex Pilot) — helps companies pay remote team members. We take care of payroll, benefits, compliance and onboarding for international teams. Backed by Y Combinator 🇺🇸, Credo 🇨🇿, Innovation Nest 🇵🇱, Sam Altman, Kyle Vogt.
• Gemelo — AI videos with AI twins made by cloning your voice and looks. Stealth mode.
• Gotiva—digital content distribution and revenue platform by previous co-founder of Huuuge Games. Raised over $2M from SMOK Ventures 🇵🇱, Bit Bets 🇩🇪 and Movens 🇵🇱.
• Talkie.ai — fully automated AI-based patient communications platform. Raised $2.5M from 4growth 🇵🇱, Movens 🇵🇱, Satus 🇵🇱, FundingBox 🇵🇱 and Gateway Ventures 🇦🇹.
• FibriTech —biodegradable materials for alternative to plastic products. Raised over $2.5M USD from Bitspiration Booster 🇵🇱 and grants 🇪🇺.
• Reef Factory — smart aquarium devices. Raised $2.7M from Aper Ventures 🇵🇱, Kap Holding 🇵🇱.
• Rift — cold outbound that doesn’t land in spam. Latest Y Combinator 🇺🇸 company with a Polish founder.

Anyone missing?

If you believe a notable company that matches the criteria set at the beginning of the article is missing, feel free to ping me in this thread with a one sentence explanation that includes a high level pitch and amount of funding raised. I’ll do my best to keep updating this list with the hottest Polish startups of 2024!

Previous editions of this article can be found here: Hottest Polish Startups of 2021, Hottest Polish Startups of 2019, and the original answer on Quora.

Are you looking for (pre-)seed funding in 2024?

Our new SMOK Ventures II fund is active and we’re planning to invest in 20–30 more companies during the next three years, so if you are:

• a cockroach superhero,
• raising your pre-seed or seed round,
• for a software startup,
• from Poland, the CEE region (see the flags below) or diaspora,

read our FAQ and shoot me an email with a pitch deck at borys@smok.vc!

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