Polish startup ecosystem's worst nightmares: PFR Ventures to TechPL

What would really frighten Poland's founders and investors? A Halloween-themed editorial exercise answers with a series of tongue-in-cheek horror scenarios, each starting with the words «it would be scary if…».

The darkest one involves PFR Ventures. The state-backed investor regularly stresses its own role in financing domestic venture capital funds, and its quarterly reports present that support as generous. If the money were suddenly and permanently switched off, the authors argue, founders and investors alike would turn pale. The picture they paint is a patient cut off from a life-saving drip, and a market in which zombie funds take the leading roles. Whether such a funding model is healthy, they note, is a separate debate.

Events without their regular host

The second nightmare is lighter in tone. Jarosław Sroka moderates or speaks at so many startup events that, in the authors' telling, hardly anyone notices anymore. The fear is not that people tire of him, but that he tires of hosting the eleventh edition of Carpathian or the nineteenth meetup at Warsaw's Rotunda, and says «enough». Halls would empty, events would vanish from the calendar and networking would freeze.

The piece also asks what would happen if the bold claims of Kraków investor and vlogger Dawid Pałka turned out to be entirely accurate. His public statements, the authors note, do not always find understanding, and some critics see them as reach-seeking rather than business facts. If he were right, they joke, many skeptics would have to eat their words.

A silent umbrella group

The most concrete item concerns TechPL, the grassroots umbrella organization founded more than a year ago to represent founders and innovators. It received a Kreator award for community integration. Yet the authors say they struggle to name initiatives aimed at people outside its board. The group's recent leadership election mentioned only that it sent 39 letters to Polish institutions in 12 months. An interview request sent on 8 September, and repeated several times, has gone unanswered.

The piece closes on the idea of TechPL finally speaking up loudly, which, in this lineup of horrors, is perhaps the most hopeful scenario of all.