“Warsaw is at a crucial moment now. This city is like Berlin in the 90s – it should be watched very closely,” Paweł Lipkowski from the RBL_VC fund told TechCrunch.

“The entire region of CEE, including Poland and Warsaw itself, has for years been perceived as an extremely strong talent base in the field of engineering and IT. On the other hand, investors' inherent risk aversion meant that for years a more local approach to the market was in the lead, while more complex and technologically advanced projects were put on hold,” Karol Szubstarski, partner at OTB Ventures, added.

In his opinion, however, in recent years we have observed a paradigm shift – a new generation of young entrepreneurs is not afraid to use technologically advanced solutions, emphasizing global expansion and avoiding relatively narrow local markets. As a result, the quality of developed businesses is now gradually increasing and is now reaching the global level, especially in the technological sphere.

Interestingly, the talks and a survey conducted by TechCrunch on a group of 20 important venture capital funds and investors on the Polish market show that the recent lockdown crisis did not have a key impact on the operation of startups in Poland.

“Not much has changed since March, but we have moved from extreme panic to extreme optimism. Neither of these approaches is appropriate – you should focus on long-term goals and not be put under pressure,” Michał Papuga, partner at Flashpoint VC, said.

(300gospodarka)