Portal site looks for partner, but Prokom's not a shoe in<BR>
"For sure Prokom doesn't want to buy Wirtualna Polska," said Marek Borzestowski, managing director of WP.
However, the company "is in discussions with many potential investors" from the information-technology sector, including software producers and internet-access providers, Borzestowski said. The company will sell a stake "for sure by the end of this year."
The size of the stake to be sold is under discussion, Borzestowski said. He said WP is looking to an investor more for know-how in the industry and less for financial backing. He refused to disclose WP's revenue or losses, except to say that the site is not breaking even yet.
The firm's financial adviser, Krakow-based brokerage house Penetrator, has estimated WP to be worth $10 million-$20 million, Borzestowski said. That figure is based on the current value of other U.S. portal sites.
WP is a wholly owned subsidiary of Centrum Nowych Technolgii (CNT), a Gdansk-based internet company that specializes in advanced services, secure intranet applications and internet advertising.
The site makes money through advertising, Borzestowski said. The company's No. 1 advertiser is computer chip maker Intel, who is the exclusive sponsor of WP's home page. The site charges zl. 0.05 per impression, but gives discounts for bulk purchases, he said.
WP is following a slightly different path than some of the U.S. portal sites to which it is often compared, such as Yahoo! and Excite, Borzestowski said. While those sites first found financial investors and only later sought out strategic investors, WP wants to skip the first step, Borzestowski said.
"We've watched what happened with Yahoo and Softbank, Excite and Disney, and @Home and Bresnan," Borzestowski said. "But the Polish internet market is growing faster, and the development phases are different.
"If we only look for money, Yahoo or Excite will come to Poland" and possibly crush WP, he said. "That is why it is important to get a strategic investor."
WP's parent company, CNT, was founded in 1995 by three Poles and three Germans. Borzestowski, 28, and friend Leszek Bogdanowicz, 31, met in 1994 while studying at the Institute for Nuclear Research in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The same year they met the third Polish partner, Jacek Kawalec, 33, in an internet chat room. Kawalec, who was living in Holland at the time, said he wanted to make a Polish catalog of the internet, much like Yahoo!
In 1997, three German friends from Karlsruhe left the company and a fourth Polish partner was brought in. Maciej Grabski, 30, is the cousin of one of CNT's best employees, Borzestowski said. Today, Grabski holds 48% of the company while Borzestowski, Bogdanowicz and Kawalec have 17% each, Borzestowski said. Kawalec works for U.S. software maker Oracle in Minnesota and is not involved in the day-to-day operations, Borzestowski said.
"We're alot like Yahoo! in the U.S.," Borzestowski said. "Yahoo! is only half a year older than us."
All of CNT's employees are in their 20s. Like the founders, most are graduates or current students of Gdansk Polytechnic's IT department, where Borzestowski is a lecturer.
The WP web page (www.wp.pl) gets about 20 million visits per month, Borzestowski said. It's arch rival in the internet portal business, Onet (www.onet.com.pl) claims 1 million page views per day, said Grzegorz Urban, spokesman for Onet at Optimus Pascal. A joint venture of computer hardware maker Optimus and publisher Pascal Multimedia, Optimus Pascal owns Onet. (See related story page S8)
"We are like Coke and Pepsi," Urban said of the rivalry between WP and Onet. "But most Polish internet users know English, so we have to compete with American portals."
A third Polish portal attracting a lot of attention is Chip magazine's site Chip Online (www.chip.pl), which features its Netoskop search engine. The site gets 2.5 million visits per month, said Piotr Wyrzykowski, the director for online activities at Chip, which is owned by Vogel Publishing.
However, the company "is in discussions with many potential investors" from the information-technology sector, including software producers and internet-access providers, Borzestowski said. The company will sell a stake "for sure by the end of this year."
The size of the stake to be sold is under discussion, Borzestowski said. He said WP is looking to an investor more for know-how in the industry and less for financial backing. He refused to disclose WP's revenue or losses, except to say that the site is not breaking even yet.
The firm's financial adviser, Krakow-based brokerage house Penetrator, has estimated WP to be worth $10 million-$20 million, Borzestowski said. That figure is based on the current value of other U.S. portal sites.
WP is a wholly owned subsidiary of Centrum Nowych Technolgii (CNT), a Gdansk-based internet company that specializes in advanced services, secure intranet applications and internet advertising.
The site makes money through advertising, Borzestowski said. The company's No. 1 advertiser is computer chip maker Intel, who is the exclusive sponsor of WP's home page. The site charges zl. 0.05 per impression, but gives discounts for bulk purchases, he said.
WP is following a slightly different path than some of the U.S. portal sites to which it is often compared, such as Yahoo! and Excite, Borzestowski said. While those sites first found financial investors and only later sought out strategic investors, WP wants to skip the first step, Borzestowski said.
"We've watched what happened with Yahoo and Softbank, Excite and Disney, and @Home and Bresnan," Borzestowski said. "But the Polish internet market is growing faster, and the development phases are different.
"If we only look for money, Yahoo or Excite will come to Poland" and possibly crush WP, he said. "That is why it is important to get a strategic investor."
WP's parent company, CNT, was founded in 1995 by three Poles and three Germans. Borzestowski, 28, and friend Leszek Bogdanowicz, 31, met in 1994 while studying at the Institute for Nuclear Research in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The same year they met the third Polish partner, Jacek Kawalec, 33, in an internet chat room. Kawalec, who was living in Holland at the time, said he wanted to make a Polish catalog of the internet, much like Yahoo!
In 1997, three German friends from Karlsruhe left the company and a fourth Polish partner was brought in. Maciej Grabski, 30, is the cousin of one of CNT's best employees, Borzestowski said. Today, Grabski holds 48% of the company while Borzestowski, Bogdanowicz and Kawalec have 17% each, Borzestowski said. Kawalec works for U.S. software maker Oracle in Minnesota and is not involved in the day-to-day operations, Borzestowski said.
"We're alot like Yahoo! in the U.S.," Borzestowski said. "Yahoo! is only half a year older than us."
All of CNT's employees are in their 20s. Like the founders, most are graduates or current students of Gdansk Polytechnic's IT department, where Borzestowski is a lecturer.
The WP web page (www.wp.pl) gets about 20 million visits per month, Borzestowski said. It's arch rival in the internet portal business, Onet (www.onet.com.pl) claims 1 million page views per day, said Grzegorz Urban, spokesman for Onet at Optimus Pascal. A joint venture of computer hardware maker Optimus and publisher Pascal Multimedia, Optimus Pascal owns Onet. (See related story page S8)
"We are like Coke and Pepsi," Urban said of the rivalry between WP and Onet. "But most Polish internet users know English, so we have to compete with American portals."
A third Polish portal attracting a lot of attention is Chip magazine's site Chip Online (www.chip.pl), which features its Netoskop search engine. The site gets 2.5 million visits per month, said Piotr Wyrzykowski, the director for online activities at Chip, which is owned by Vogel Publishing.
