Poland’s VC Market Gets Boost: How Future Tech Poland Is Accelerating Poland’s Deep Tech Ecosystem

• Future Tech Poland’s first commitments rapidly accelerate Polish VC scaling across strategic technology sectors
• The fund of funds channels EUR 85M into Poland’s three specialised VC funds
• The programme strengthens defence, AI, cybersecurity, space, and dual-use innovation ecosystem growth
• The model boosts private capital attraction and long-term market maturity

This March, Future Tech Poland—the joint fund-of-funds initiative of BGK (Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego) and the European Investment Fund (EIF) and part of the Innovate Poland national investment programme—announced its first three investments in Polish VC funds. The funding injections with a total worth of EUR 85M come a mere couple of months after Future Tech Poland’s launch.

The Future Tech Poland Fund of Funds in Recap

Future Tech Poland is a EUR 350M fund of funds launched by the European Investment Fund (EIF) and Poland’s national development bank BGK in early 2026 to strengthen Poland’s VC ecosystem and support innovative technology companies. BGK contributed EUR 235M, while EIF invested at least EUR 115M and took on managing the fund. The initiative is part of the broader Innovate Poland programme, which aims to mobilize public and private capital for strategic investments in high-growth businesses.

Rather than investing directly in startups, Future Tech Poland is designed to invest in VC and growth funds operating primarily in Poland and the wider CEE region, helping them reach larger fund sizes and support more companies. The programme seeks to address a long-standing financing gap in Poland, where VC investment relative to GDP remains significantly below the EU average, particularly at growth stages. It is expected to mobilize around PLN 5B (EUR ~1.2B) in total financing, supporting approximately 150–200 technology companies while fostering a stronger, more internationally competitive Polish innovation ecosystem.

‘Future Tech Poland offers a strategic opportunity to strengthen Poland’s innovations ecosystem by bridging the funding gap that has hindered dynamic development of tech companies. It’s an investment in competitiveness, a key pillar of lasting economic security and — in case of these first commitments — state resilience. BGK is the largest investor when it comes to Future Tech Poland and Innovate Poland. We have been implementing a new investment strategy under which BGK intends to reach EUR 3B+ in equity investments by 2027,’ BGK’s President of the Management Board Mirosław Czekaj states.

Driven Execution Enables Rapid First Investments

ITKeyMedia approached BGK’s Managing Director of the Investment and Analysis Division Marcin Prusak to discuss Future Tech Poland’s spectacularly quick path to choosing its first VCs to invest in and its expectations in this regard:

From announcement to deployment in just a few months — can you point out internal capabilities or decision-making processes that enabled such a rapid first allocation of capital?

Marcin Prusak: Future Tech Poland benefited from the fact that the EIF is the fund-of-funds manager and runs a well-established, repeatable investment process across multiple European mandates. The EIF conducts the end-to-end investment work—sourcing, evaluation and due diligence—under its internal procedures and then applies its deal allocation methodology to determine which opportunities are allocated to which mandate, including Future Tech Poland, in line with the programme’s investment parameters.

The programme’s strategy was presented publicly in February, and the first commitments were signed shortly afterwards. This reflects a ready pipeline and an execution model where EIF leads sourcing and assessment while BGK participates through governance mechanisms.

This structure allows for speed without compromising selection discipline, and the first EUR 86M commitment across three Polish VC funds—Expeditions Fund II, Cogito Fund II, and Balnord Fund I—illustrates that the programme moved from announcement to execution in line with its objectives.

How did you prioritize these first three funds? What does this selection signal about Future Tech Poland’s sectoral or stage preferences going forward?

MP: Future Tech Poland’s strategy envisages investments primarily in VC funds, complemented by a limited allocation to Venture Debt strategies (capped at 20% of Future Tech Poland’s commitments), operating primarily in the Central and Eastern Europe region as well as on a pan-European scale. The fund size should exceed EUR 60M, and the fund manager must be headquartered in Poland or have a strong presence of its management team in Poland. The goal of Future Tech Poland is to build larger venture capital funds that will be able to play a more significant role in the development of the European innovation ecosystem.

What these first allocations show is a clear emphasis on advanced technologies linked to competitiveness and resilience, including defence/security, cyber, dual-use, and space-related innovation.

In terms of stage, the first set includes managers focused on both early-stage and growth-stage support. This is consistent with the strategy of strengthening Poland-anchored funds so they can back companies as they scale and expand internationally.

Did you identify any specific gaps during due diligence of the first VC funds that will need to be addressed subsequently?

MP: The EIF conducts the due diligence and applies its established assessment framework when selecting portfolio funds, and as a matter of principle we do not comment on fund-level diligence findings publicly.

At programme level, Future Tech Poland was designed precisely to strengthen the capacity of Poland-anchored managers to operate at a more competitive European scale, including the ability to finance follow-on rounds and support international growth.

This is also why the strategy focuses on building a diversified portfolio of funds and with strong local senior presence.

How will BGK evaluate whether Future Tech Poland is successfully crowding in private capital?

MP: Crowding-in is embedded both structurally and practically. Structurally, Future Tech Poland is designed so that the EIF co-invests alongside the programme, and portfolio funds are expected to have a meaningful base of private investors in line with the published strategy.

Practically, early signals can be observed when Future Tech Poland’s participation helps managers exceed initial fund targets and attract additional private commitments—an effect described in relation to the first allocations.

From BGK’s standpoint, we will look at crowding-in through a combination of portfolio-level reporting and market outcomes: the ability of supported managers to attract and retain private LPs over time, and the scale of capital ultimately deployed into Poland-linked technology companies—because that is where mobilisation translates into real economic impact. In the future, we expect that in subsequent editions of the fund, fund managers can attract an even larger number of private investors and establish funds with increased investable capacity.

Does BGK have specific expectations for portfolio funds in terms of ecosystem-building?

MP: Future Tech Poland is primarily an investment programme delivered through commitments to professional VC and growth managers. We do not impose separate, prescriptive requirements such as formal talent programmes or partnership quotas.

That said, ecosystem effects are an expected outcome of the programme design: raising fund sizes, increasing the number of high-quality managers, and strengthening Poland’s role as a meaningful hub for advanced technologies.

International connectivity is also reinforced naturally by syndication and by the presence of the EIF as a recognised institutional partner, which helps managers engage broader investor networks.

Anticipating further investments through 2026–2027, what criteria will determine the pace of deployment versus holding back capital for later market cycles?

MP: Future Tech Poland’s investment strategy envisages a deployment period of approximately 2–3 years, with the portfolio expected to be fully allocated by the end of 2027.

While fund‑level commitments are expected to be completed in 2-3 years, the underlying portfolio funds typically have investment periods of 5–7 years, during which they gradually build their company portfolios. As a result, capital will be deployed into portfolio companies progressively, with the real‑economy impact of the programme extending over the course of the next decade. This structure supports a measured and resilient capital deployment profile, balancing timely allocation with long‑term value creation across market cycles. Deployment pace will be driven by the availability of investable opportunities that meet the programme parameters (e.g., fund size, local senior presence, private participation) and by maintaining investment discipline through the EIF’s selection process and ongoing governance.

Looking ahead, do you envision Future Tech Poland evolving beyond a fund-of-funds model, e.g. toward direct co-investments or more specialized thematic vehicles?

MP: Future Tech Poland is designed as an EIF-managed fund-of-funds to strengthen the VC ecosystem through intermediaries and to build a diversified portfolio of managers at scale.

Within Future Tech Poland, we do not assume a shift toward direct co-investments. BGK has other instruments that can address different parts of the market, while Future Tech Poland’s specific role is to scale the fund management layer and expand the pool of capital available for innovative companies. These include direct investments into venture and growth equity funds, as well as Innovate PL FoF, which will be accompanied by a dedicated co‑investment component. These instruments allow BGK to support different stages, risk profiles and market needs, while preserving the focused and coherent design of Future Tech Poland as a cornerstone fund‑of‑funds platform.

First Investments: Defence, AI, and Frontier Technologies

The first investment by Future Tech Poland targets a VC fund focused on such strategic sectors as defence and security, cybersecurity, dual-use technologies,AI, and space innovation. Expeditions Fund which backs early-stage startups developing next-generation defence and security solutions. With a EUR 31M commitment from Future Tech Poland, the fund gains the scale needed to operate alongside leading venture capital funds in more mature European and global markets, providing stronger support for emerging innovators. 

Expeditions has been investing in early-stage technology companies in the security sector since 2021, swiftly becoming a European leader. Our aim is to support the most ambitious entrepreneurs developing products that will shape the future of Europe’s arms industry and new deterrence strategy. Poland has the potential to become a hub for dual-use technologies, and we are proud to work with BGK and the EIF towards this goal.

– Mikołaj Firlej, Co-Founder and General Partner at Expeditions Fund

Cogito Capital, in turn, focuses on early growth-stage technology companies, with particular expertise in such sectors as AI and fintech. The fund supports startups that have already demonstrated market traction and are preparing to scale internationally, including expansion into the US. A long-standing investment partner of both the EIF and BGK, Cogito Capital secured a EUR 30M commitment from Future Tech Poland.

The Future Tech Poland program — which has introduced a new local institutional investor with more EUR 350M+ in capital to support growth‑stage investment funds — represents a strategically significant development for managers like Cogito Capital. Future Tech Poland helps address the structural capital gap within Poland’s growth‑equity market and directly enhances our ability to attract commitments from international LPs while resulting in a higher‑than‑originally‑targeted capitalization of our current fund.

– Sylwester Janik, Managing Partner at Cogito Capital Partners

Finally, Balnord received EUR 24M+ from Future Tech Poland to support its investment strategy focused on frontier and dual-use technologies. The fund backs early-stage startups across the Baltic region, helping emerging companies develop innovative solutions with both commercial and strategic applications. 

Future Tech Poland’s investment by BGK and the EIF marks a capital, as well as a strategic boost for Balnord. It has pushed the fund significantly above its original target size, which drew in more capital from private investors, allowing us to expand the scale of our activities and to plan follow-up reserves up to EUR 12M per investment. This opens new opportunities for Balnord to invest in breakthrough dual-use technologies, including in the space sector. Such technologies are key for Europe’s technological security. We believe they will drive the reindustrialisation of Europe and build the long-term industrial and technological advantages of the Polish economy.

– Marcin Kowalik, General Partner at Balnord

Strengthening Europe’s Innovation Pipeline for a More Competitive VC Ecosystem

‘These first investments by Future Tech Poland mark an important step in strengthening Poland’s VC ecosystem. By helping Polish funds reach a more competitive scale,Future Tech Poland enables them to provide stronger support to innovative technologies that are critical for Poland’s long‑term competitiveness and economic resilience. Backed by the EIF’s due diligence and quality stamp, the programme has the potential to unlock EUR 1B+ for the innovation ecosystem, supporting as many as 200 promising entrepreneurs and small businesses,’ the EIF’s CEO Marjut Falkstedt concludes.

Future Tech Poland’s first three commitments demonstrate how rapidly targeted institutional capital can strengthen the scale and competitiveness of VC funds across Poland and the wider CEE region. By backing managers focused on strategically important sectors such as defence, cybersecurity, AI, space, and dual-use technologies, the programme is tangibly helping build a stronger pipeline of innovation while attracting additional private investment into the market. Beyond the immediate EUR 85 million deployment, these first investments set the foundation for a more mature, resilient, and internationally connected VC ecosystem capable of supporting the next generation of European technology champions.