This content was originally published in Polish on Borys’ LinkedIn profile. Borys kindly agreed to republish what we think is of great value to our readers.
It is hard to understand why Poland should create yet another institution—the Fund for the Development of Breakthrough Technologies, proposed by President Karol Nawrocki with a budget of PLN 5B from an unspecified source—when a similar program, the Critical Technologies Support Fund (PLN 4B, written into the budget), has already been operating since July.
The challenge in Poland is not a shortage of support schemes for entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the performance of institutions such as PARP and NCBiR leaves much to be desired.
By contrast, BGK and PFR Ventures have demonstrated their ability to manage public resources effectively. These institutions can vert well be entrusted with future programs, instead of creating new bureaucratic structures with overlapping mandates. Reinventing the wheel only wastes time and resources.
What we need far more is greater European cooperation. Poland alone will never catch up with the United States or China. But as part of the European Union, we can compete with them on a meaningful scale. That means engaging more actively with institutions such as the EIF, EIB, and EBRD, and raising awareness of their programs among Polish entrepreneurs. At present, only a small fraction of Polish companies apply for opportunities such as the excellent EIC grants—a missed chance for innovation funding.
To be clear, an additional PLN 5B for innovation would be extremely valuable. I also support the proposed KPIs: growing the number of specialists in Poland, strengthening our intellectual property base, and enabling Polish companies to acquire competitors abroad.
What makes little sense is setting up another new institution to distribute grants or investments. We already have effective mechanisms in place: PFR Ventures is functioning well, BGK is commercially oriented, and the EIF has vast experience in designing and implementing programs fairly in partnership with national agencies. Leveraging these existing structures is a much smarter strategy than building yet another institution from scratch.
Engineer turned entrepreneur turned investor, Borys is a founding Partner at SMOK Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm bridging Silicon Valley to Poland and the CEE region.
Formerly as an entrepreneur, co-founded Filmaster, a personalized recommendation startup acquired in 2015 by Samba TV. During his four years at Samba he built a team of 40 engineers in Warsaw and helped grow the company’s products onto the British and German markets.
Borys also co-founded ReaktorWarsaw startup hub, ReaktorX accelerator which helped 100+ first-time founders kickstart their startups, and Startup Poland, a leading think tank.
PJAIT graduate. Prior to founding his own projects, worked as a software engineer and team lead for both startups and large corporations in Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Listed as one of 50 most creative Polish entrepreneurs by BRIEF. Mentors at Google for Startups, Founder Institute, Huge Thing.
Film buff. Basketball junkie.
