What are the best Polish startups in 2019?

Update 8.3.2024: There is an updated version of this story: Hottest Polish Startups in 2024.
Update 9.5.2021: Note that an updated version of the list is now available: What are the hottest Polish tech startups in 2021?

I’ve been constantly updating my list of hottest startups in Poland over the last decade on Quora and I finally decided to make it into a blog post as well, so here you are — I’m presenting the list of the most valuable, interesting, groundbreaking and popular Polish startups as of September 2019.

I only included the startups (and scale-ups) that work globally on a product, which eliminated some very successful local companies providing services to the home market. I have decided to divide the startups into categories based on what seems to be Poland’s specialties: gaming, consumer hardware (especially beacons and 3d printing, health devices), big data and AI, medtech, fintech, blockchain and more.

The Witcher by CD Project RED

Hottest of the Hottest

Those are the clear global market leaders in their respective categories, companies that we’re the most proud of as Poles.

• CD PROJEKT RED — game studio, authors of The Witcher (creative franchise) and Cyberpunk 2077 (video game). IPO. Valued at $6B (Sept 2019)
• Techland — game developer and publisher, authors of Dying Light (2015 game). Bootstrapped. Still private, but valued $1–2B (2019).
• Huuuge Games — free2play studio with a world hit HuuugeCasio. Also a publisher. Still private. Raised $57M (Sept 2019)
• Ten Square Games — free2play game studio by Maciej Popowicz. IPO. Valued at $250M (Sept 2019)
• DocPlanner aka Znanylekarz — doctor rating site popular in Poland and neighboring countries by Mariusz Gralewski. Acquired competitors in Turkey, Spain and South America. Raised $140M (Sept 2019)
• LiveChat — customer support software, IPO in Poland. Trading at $250M (Sept 2019).
• Brainly — social learning platform. Raised $68.5M (Sept 2019)
• Azimo — Transferwise competitor. Raised $66M (Sept 2019)
• Estimote — real world context for your apps (YCombinator Alum 2013) by Jakub Krzych. Raised $27M (Sept 2019)
• Booksy — the easiest way to book your hairdresser, massage, spa and other beauty services by Stefan Batory (also behind other successful businesses: EO Networks and iTaxi). Raised $20M (Sept 2019)
• Brand24 — social media monitoring tool (think Mention, Google Alerts but way better) by Michal Sadowski. IPO. Valued at $18M (Sept 2019)
• GetResponse — bulk email service (Mailchimp competitor) by Simon Grabowski. Bootstrapped. Still private.

Fintech

• Azimo (mentioned in the hottest)
• Beesfund.com — equity crowd-funding (helped raise funding numerous startups including Migam, InPay, etc)
• Golden Sand Bank — new bank and wealth management app by mBank founder Sławomir Lachowski
• Vodeno — new fintech business by Wojciech Sobieraj, Alior Bank co-founder, in stealth mode, but already raised hundreds of millions
• Zencard — loyalty programme that works directly via your credit card. Finalists of MasterCard (Start Path), acquired by PKO BP in 2017
• Kontomatik — Banking API (previously known as Kontomierz) — acquired by Kreditech for less than $10M (Kreditech acquires top Polish fintech company Kontox)
• Cinkciarz.pl — currency exchange online, sponsor of Chicago Bulls in 2016–17
• banqUP (previously Atsora) — open banking platform by Krzysztof Pulkiewicz
• Friendly Score — social credit scoring

Cinkciarz sponsoring Chicago Bulls basketball team

Blockchain & Bitcoin tech

• GOLEM — worldwide supercomputer that crowdsourced $8.6 million via Ethereum in 2016, currently in top CryptoCurrency Market Capitalizations
• Coinfirm — Blockchain AML & Compliance Platform
• InPay — sell Bitcoin, buy Bitcoin, accept Bitcoin payments
• Ramp — decentralized crypto onboarding SDK powered by open banking (Huge Thing graduate). Raised $1M in 2018.
• Hoard Exchange — marketplace for true ownership or virtual items in games, by the GOLEM team.
• Nebula Network — decentralized blockchain-based cryptocurrency with an emission mechanism based on the supply of electronic resources (ReaktorX graduate)

Golem is building a worldwide supercomputer on blockchain

Health & Wellbeing

• Docplanner (mentioned in the hottest)
• Telemedi.co — online consultations with doctors (raised 200k EUR from Docplanner founders)
• Infermedica — pre-diagnose, triage, and connect your patients with the appropriate medical services. Raised 3.7M (as of Sept 2019)
• MySpiroo — ultraportable peak flow meter that connects to your smartphone (TechCrunch article)
• Harimata — turns gagdets into health monitors
• GLOV by Phenicoptere — products for makeup removal and home SPA
• Sidly — wearable medical device that monitors your health
• Emerald — clear the air around you
• Egzotech — your robot physiotherapist
• vBionic — prosthetic hand
• StethoMe — hardware to examine your child’s health. Raised $4.2M (Sept 2019)
• UnitDoseOne — takes care of hospital drugs logistics
• biolumo — point-of-care diagnostic machine for general practitioners (GPs) to help them select proper antibiotics by Olga Grudniak (graduate of Startupbootcamp Berlin Digital Health 2017
• HoloSurgical — synthetic vision for surgeons

MySpiroo in action

Consumer Hardware

• Advanced Cinema Robotic Systems (previously BeSteady) — started as a camera stabilizer project (raised $300k+ on Kickstarter), now producing a set of tools for cinema-makers (backed by SpeedUp Venture Capital Group)
• Photon — a robot that grows with your child and teaches it how to program
• JIVR — bike aiming to revolutionize city cycling, as covered by VentureBeat
• Swimmo — FitBit for swimmers
• First 11 — FitBit for footballers
• RoboCORE: the heart of your personal robot, also went through kickstarter
• uAvionics — unmanned systems

Photon is a robot that evolves with your kid

3D Printing Tech

According to Predictions 2015: 3D printing is a revolution | by Deloitte, 10% of world 3d-printers are designed and manufactured in Poland, making us the market leader in that category.

• Zortrax 3D Printer — leading 3d printer manufacturer with clients including Dell and HP, covered by TC multiple times (1, 2, 3)
• Sinterit — desktop 3d SLS printers
• Omni3D — a printer that can print an an artificial prosthetic beak to save a penguin
• Zmorph — personal fabricators for you and your office
• Skriware — 3d printer designed for home, raised over $50k on Kickstarter in 2015
• 3d Kreator — versatile 3D printer for your business
• Cubic Inch — production, prototyping and design for 3d printing

Zortrax 3D printer

IoT and beacon-related tech

• Estimote (mentioned in the hottest)
• Silvair (previously seedlabs.io) — smart lighting platform by Rafał Han
• KONTAKT.io — another iBeacon company (backed by Sunstone Capital)
• Fibaro (Z-Wave) — home automation, recent valuation: $40m
• MorAmp — tech for e-mobility (scooters, bikes) and cloud service for predictive maintenance. Raised $2M in 2018.

Estimote LTE beacons

Video, Augmented & Virtual Reality

• Tellyo — tool for broadcasters to easily share video content in social media
• Cubiware — set-top box middleware maker acquired by TiVO
• DCC Labs — another set-top box software company acquired by SeaChange
• Filmaster — Netflix-like personalization and analytics platform for the entertainment industry (backed by HackFwd and hardGAMMA Ventures) — sold to Samba TV in 2015 (humble disclosure: I was a co-founder)
• Flowbox — rotoscoping and VFX platform for the movie industry (backed by Innovation Nest)
• Bivrost — tools enabling the production & experience of the stereoscopic 360° video
• Nanovo — digital in-store communication tools dedicated to retail
• Superbright — VR studio, a launch partner of Google Daydream, by Wojtek Podgorski

Bivrost VR cameras

Customer Service Automation

• LiveChat (mentioned in the hottest)
• Tidio — chatbot builder for websites
• CallPage — livechat for call backs
• LiveCall — another livechat for calls. I know.
• User.com — Intercom competitor
• Sugester — customer support and ticket management by Marcin Stefaniak
• Migam — building communication between the deaf people and everyone else, customer service for the deaf

Sales and Marketing Automation

• Sales Manago — marketing automation, e-mail marketing
• GetResponse (mentioned in the hottest)
• FreshMail — GetResponse / Mailchimp / Sendmail competitor
• ExpertSender — marketing automation, e-mail marketing, but focused on big customers only
• Cluify — Turn offline shoppers into your clients (by Datarino)
• Growbots — SaaS customer acquisition by Greg Pietruszynski (backed by 500 Startups (company))
• RightHello, GrowthLab, edbms — lead generation startups similar to Growbots
• indaHash — influencer marketing

Martech, Advertising Tech, PR Tech

• RTB House — ad retargeting software with its own bidder
• Synerise — marketing cloud
• Codewise — adtech products for the low value inventory
• Yieldbird (formerly AdTaily) — programmatic ad management by Marcin Ekiert
• Prowly — making your content more visible by Joanna Drabent ($1,1M seed raised in 2016)
• Eventory — event management & marketing platform by Andrzej Targosz, founder of Bitspiration Festival

Brand24 Internet monitorsing panel

Internet Monitoring

• Brand24 (mentioned in the hottest)
• SentiOne — Brand24 competitor, very similar product and traction
• Sotrender — Social media analytics & optimisation by Jan Zajac
• NapoleonCat — all in one social media dashboard
• PricePanorama — real-time price monitoring by Marek Małachowski

PackHelp packages

Company Management Software

• Base — a post-PC CRM by Uzi Shmilovici, Ela Madej, Bart Kiszala & Agata Mazur. Raised $53M. Acquired by Zendesk in 2018.
• Livespace CRM — a smart CRM
• InvoiceOcean aka Vos Factures aka Fakturownia — online invoicing tool focused on UK, French and Polish markets. Bootstrapped.
• Survicate — a web survey platform by Kamil Rejent (backed by Innovation Nest, SpeedUp Group & ARIA)
• Unamo (previously Positionly) — SEO and rank monitoring tool by Grzegorz Kazulak
• Packhelp — external packaging help to make your boxes pretty
• Booksy (mentioned in the hottest)
• Versum — Booksy competitor
• Perfect Gym — gym management software
• Autenti — e-signature company, DocuSign competitor

Customized furniture by tylko

Design and Fashion

• 4F — sportswear brand
• ANSWEAR.com — online multibrand store that operates in Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary (as of late 2016)
• SHOWROOM — marketplace for independent fashion brands and designers (backed by hardGAMMA Ventures, Hubert Burda Media)
• tylko — customized furniture
• Intiaro — visualization and configuration tool for furnishing products online (kind of like tylko but white label)
• MISBHV — fashion boutique (Rihanna wears them!)
• Displate — metal posters (they are really cool!)
• LESS_ — marketplace for second-hand clothes

Consumer Apps & Marketplaces

• Brainly (mentioned in the hottest)
• Audioteka — audiobook platform running in Poland, Czech Republic, France and other EU countries (backed by Giza Polish Ventures and K2 Internet)
• Nozbe — popular getting things done tool
• Betegy — football prediction tool to help betting
• Listonic — a popular smart shopping list app with a nice ad-powered business model by Filip Miłoszewski
• DailyArt — mobile app with a daily dose of art on your phone and a BuzzFeed for art (DailyArtDaily.com) by Zuzanna Stanska
• Explain Everything — collaborative whiteboard app
• FinancesOnline.com — top 3 in the world in SaaS software comparison and reviews by Sebastian Lambert
• AirHelp — helps passengers get refunds for delayed or canceled flights. yCombinator graduate. Raised $12.2M. Profitable with tens of millions in ARR as of Sept 2019. 90% of the staff is Polish and based in the country.

Human Resources

• Codility — automated programmer test tool as part of the recruitment process by Grzegorz Jakacki and Natalia Panowicz(backed by Seedcamp 2009, raised $22M in 2020)
• DevSkiller — another automated programmer skill test software
• Talent Alpha — software house as a service. Raised $5M seed round in 2019.
• Pilot — a contractor platform geared for the future of work (YC 2017)
• SkillHunt — personalized recruitment

Apps for Designers and Engineers

• UXPin — design and wireframing tool by Marcin Treder backed by Innovation Nest, Andreessen-Horowitz (venture capital firm) — raised $7M
• Wikidot — website building tool by Michal Frackowiak
• Virtkick — VPS cloud management backed by Techstars San Antonio (acquired by OnApp in 2016)
• Perfect Dashboard — automatically update WordPress websites. Acquiredby WP Engine in 2019.
• Neptune — experiment management tool for AI
• Luna — visual programming language for data science
• Vue Storefront — Fast-growning open source PWA for e-commerce

Image and Speech Recognition

• Ivona — text-to-speech technology (acquired by Amazon in 2013)
• VoicePIN — voice recognition for banking
• VoiceLab — smart chatbots
• Quantum Lab — facial expression recognition system

Big Data & Automation

• Oktawave — computing cloud (backed by K2 Internet)
• Elmodis — improves efficiency of industrial machines (backed by Innovation Nest)
• Fogger — big data for predictive maintenance (previously Enteye)
• deepsense.io — big data science powered by Apache Spark (competes with IBM, SAS Institute)
• Deep.BI — real-time big data analytics (aka your big data co-founder)
• DataWalk (previously Pilab) — find and leverage hidden connections between data sets to gain new insights

Perovskite material by Saule Technologies

FFoodtech, Biotech, Hardcore Scientific Stuff

• Saule Technologies — company working on the commercial application of perovskites by creating a new generation of photovoltaic cells by Olga Malinkiewicz (backed by Hideo Sawada and NCBiR — Polish innovation government agency)
• XTPL — ultra-fine printing of a variety of nanomaterials for
  LCD manufacturers, photovoltaic cell manufacturers, glass, touch screens
• Syntoil — transform rubber into valuable resource. Finalist of Chivas Venture 2019.
• Insignes Labs — novel antimicrobial components
• HiProMine — food from insects & more eco-friendly stuff
• Sundose — personalized supplements
• Nextbio — DNA-based plant protection solutions for agritech,

Space stuff

• Creotech — spacecraft components, quantum computing
• SatRevolution — nanosatelite systems and solutions, launched their first two satellites in 2019
• SatAgro — sattelite monitor for farmers (monitors land, manages crops, saves money)

Dying Light 2 coming soon by Techland

Game development and publishing

• CD Project RED (mentioned in the hottest)
• Techland (mentioned in the hottest)
• Ten Square Games (mentioned in the hottest)
• Huuuge Games (mentioned in the hottest)
• PlayWay — game publisher and investor. Valued at $200M on Warsaw Stock Exchange (Aug 2019)
• G2A — global gaming marketplace, not necessarily legal
• Vivid Games — games for iPhone and Android, backed by Giza Polish Ventures
• 11 bit studios — official site — authors of This War of Mine among other hits
• Farm51 — creators of Chernobylite and World War 3
• Cherrypick Games — free2play games. Valued at $30M at Warsaw Stock Exchanged (2019)
• CI Games — indie publisher of premium games. alued at $30M at Warsaw Stock Exchanged (2019)
• CreativeForge Games — premium game developer and publisher best known for Hard West turn-based strategy game. Valued at $30M at Warsaw Stock Exchanged (2019)
• SUPERHOT — a unique first-person shooter game where time moves only when you move, making each level a deadly puzzle. Raised $250k on Kickstarter.
• Gamesture — free-to-play games studio, authors of Questland
• Duckiedeck — online pre-school games for kids (backed by Satus Venture)
• Reality Games — mobile games based on big data by Zbigniew Woznowski

Honorable mention

Those are some of the biggest internet companies that are specific to the Polish-market. You’ve never heard about them if you’re not Polish yourself, but the list would be incomplete without them:

• Allegro — Polish ebay (acquired by Naspers)
• Gadu-Gadu — Polish ICQ (acquired by Naspers)
• Nasza-Klasa — Polish ClassMates (acquired by Odnoklassiki, now part of Onet group)
• Onet — Polish Yahoo by Piotr Wilam (acquired by Ringier Axel Springer Polska)
• Wirtualna Polska and O2 by Michał Brański — two more Polish yahoos, now merged into one company
• Interia — yet another Polish Yahoo (owned by Grupa Bauer Media Polska)
• GoldenLine — Polish Linkedin by Mariusz Gralewski
• Niania.pl— connecting families with caregivers, specialists
• Pracuj.pl — biggest Polish job portal

Other resources

• Innovation Nest came up with this Landscape of Polish b2b software companies in February 2020. Very insightful!
• Sifted has a list of Top Polish startups to follow in 2020
• Startup Poland published a report The Polish Tech Scene: 5 Years with a lot of insights into the Polish startup ecosystem and its growth between 2014 and 2019
• Know of another list I should link here? Ping me at borys@smok.vc with a title “Hottest Polish Startups”.

Final words

I intend this post to be live and frequently updated, so please frel free to comment, suggest edits, both adding new amazing startups and removing those that died or did not reach their expectations.