Eleven accelerators selected in the "Acceleration Programmes – Poland Prize" call for applications will search for the most interesting foreign young companies with appropriate growth potential and bring them to Poland. The budget of the programme is almost EUR 24 million (PLN 106 million).
Poland Prize is an initiative aiming at foreign startups targeting Poland, implemented by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP). The Agency will finance the projects management and financial grants for startups from the EU funds
PARP has selected 11 operators: Accelpoint, The Foundation for Technology Entrepreneurship, Lodz Special Economic Zone, Krakow Technology Park, Huge Think, Blue Dot Solutions, The Kielce Technology Park, Foundation Supporting #OMGKRK, HugeTECH, Pro Design, The Lublin Science and Technology Park. Selected operators have international experience in supporting startups and effectively cooperate with Polish business partners. Founded with the help of accelerators young companies should provide groundbreaking solutions and effectively collaborate with domestic business. The programme is supposed to enable them to implement innovative solutions or acquire investor capital.
The "Acceleration Programmes - Poland Prize" operators will have almost EUR 24 million (PLN 106 million) at their disposal from the EU. The original budget of the competition was EUR 13.2 million (PLN 60 million). However, in April 2021, the allocation was increased to EUR 19 million (over PLN 86.2 million), and in May this year, it skyrocketed to almost EUR 24 million (PLN 106 million). Therefore, it has allowed to finance all projects that met the competition criteria.
– “The quality of submitted projects was impressive. Therefore the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy agreed to increase the budget. It's excellent news and great opportunity for number of foreign startups seeking their optimal model of fast growth. Thanks to such programmes Polish ecosystem becomes more opened for innovations, diverse and attractive for greater venture capital.” - says Marcin Seniuk, director of Startups Development Department in PARP.
The average total cost of a selected project is about PLN 10,25 million, and the average grant amounts to PLN 9,63 million.
Multi-stage support
Programmes offered by the accelerators will include two stages. The first begins with scouting, i.e. activities aimed to spot and acquire startups with the appropriate growth potential from outside Poland. Selected teams can receive a grant of up to PLN 50 thousand to cover the costs of a maximum of three months of first business activities in Poland. These activities provide startups with conditions necessary to start a business in Poland and include, among others, the support from a startup mentor (concierge). In addition, the funds will also cover the costs of activities necessary for the development such as building a team or improving its competencies, establishing relationships, promotion and acquiring a business partner.
In the second stage of the programme, startups that have successfully established cooperation with a business partner will receive up to PLN 250 000. The support will cover the costs of acceleration activities. This process can last up to 10 months and serves to carry out a pilot implementation of a startup’s solution at a technology recipient) or to raise investor capital.
Accelerators will also offer support to startups in the post-acceleration phase, trying to maximize the results of a given acceleration, e.g. by continuing or extending selected development activities.
The operators start operations in June and July 2021.
