An important voice in the discussion on the VC market and the start-up ecosystem was the conference 'Horizons of the Polish venture capital market: challenges for funds, start-ups and the innovation ecosystem', organized by the Warsaw School of Economics, the Foundation for the Development of Managerial Education at the Warsaw School of Economics and the Warsaw University of Technology, which took place on November 27-28.

Conference participants representing VC funds, startups, industry organizations (Polish Private Equity Association) and figures from institutions bolstering the market with public funds (National Contact Point for Financial Instruments of the European Union Programmes of the Polish Bank Association, PFR Ventures) agreed that the debate on the state of the VC market in Poland took place at a key moment. Since 2008, a period characterized by minimal VC investments in Poland, the market has grown many times, management teams have accrued invaluable experience, while the awareness and involvement of individual investors has significantly increased. At present, it is very important that the activity of funds remains unabated (especially in anticipation of European funds) and VC investors, institutional capital, capital from companies and corporations and, of course, good startups are needed for further development. It is crucial to comprehensively support the development of startup ecosystems, including in particular projects emerging from Polish universities.

CofounderZone was represented by Tomasz Goliński who shared panel discussion together with Michał Bańka (Accelpoint), Tomasz Poniński (Montis Capital), Karolina Wilk-Tryjanowska (ffVC), Michał Ratajczak (Gridaly), and Bartosz Majewski (SGH).

More about the conference: https://www.rp.pl/biznes/art39604251-horyzonty-rynku-venture-capital-w-polsce