Why You Should Develop Your Startup in Poland
Hey, guess what. Poland is no Silicon Valley. Or London. Or Berlin. But there’s more your startup can get from establishing in Poland than you can imagine. In need for deep tech? We’ve got you covered. Skilled devs and programmers? Got that, too. Money? Yes, we have it as well. What’s stopping you from coming here, then?
Polish cities don’t even aspire to become the next Silicon Valley. Instead, they’re creating their own ecosystem, that works perfectly when it comes to young startups especially.
Warsaw, Gdańsk, Cracow, Wrocław, Poznań. These are the most developed startup hubs in Poland. A country, where the economy has at least doubled in size (it’s not stopping, yet!) and a place named ‘Europe’s new growth engine’ by McKinsey in their report.
Poland is home to some of the most important startup events, such as Infoshare, FinTech & InsurTech Digital Congress, Impact CEE, Wolves Summit, Mobile Trends Conference, and more. Polish investment funds are working with startups at all stages, with a great focus on seed companies.
There’s no exaggeration here. there are twice as many accelerators in Poland compared to 2017. this means more ways for young startups to develop their skills, improve knowledge and expertise. 58% of startuppers surveyed in the Startup Poland 2018 report state that they find mentors’ help extremely important. These experts (including our Neoteric mentors) can also be found at Techseed, if you are looking for actual practical knowledge, that is.
According to Eurostat, Poland is the third cheapest country in Europe. At the same time it is well-connected with many European and non-European cities. What it means to you, as a startupper, is that you can find affordable accommodation, transport, office space, and employees without compromising on quality of each of those. This would be especially desirable when it comes to seed level startups.
Poland is known for having some of the most brilliant tech professionals. HackerRank says we are on the third place as a country with best developers. If you are looking to strengthen your startup’s tech team, Poland is a way to go, particularly with Java, C++, and Python. If you want to know more about why Poland is the place you’ve been looking for regarding developers, see this blog post from Neoteric.
Most startups in Poland are focused on tech, including big data (15%), Internet of Things (14%), analytics (13%), developers tools (9%) says the latest Startup Poland 2018 report. If you are developing your project in a tech-connected field, you can count on on skilled professionals (as stated in point 3), access to university knowledge and resources, such as labs, and funding – as investors are keen on financing tech companies.
Accelerators are booming, but so are investment funds in Poland. They’re more eager to fund seed companies compared to similar entities in other parts of the world. Which simply gives you a good head start and cash you can use at the beginning stage. The country also gives you the opportunity to diversify your funding sources. You can get VC financing right next to government-backed programmes, just like Poland Prize powered by Starter.