Poland’s pre-seed layer went quiet in 2023–24. The old PFR programs wound down, private funds sat on their hands, and first checks got hard to find. That’s over. New FENG / PFR Starter vehicles have closed, a wave of small private funds launched, and a few later-stage funds started writing early checks again.
This is our map of who’s actually deploying at pre-seed right now.
Every entry has the same skeleton: stage · typical first check · what they back · who should pitch them.
Pre-seed native funds
These write the first institutional check as their default job.
AIP Seed
Pre-seed · up to ~€200–250k · sector-agnostic · 100% private
The earliest institutional money in the country, measured by volume. Founded by Dariusz Żuk out of the AIP incubator world, the fund has done 110+ investments — breadth over concentration, first-money-in, day-one relationships. Small tickets, always with matched co-investors, plus a network of “Competence Hubs” for ops, legal, and growth support. Portfolio includes CallPage, Foodsi, GLOV, SiDLY.
Pitch them if: you’re at MVP stage and want an institutional name on the earliest round with hands-on operational support. Skip if: you need a single large lead check or deep technical diligence.
Bitspiration Booster
Pre-seed / seed · deep tech · private (Kraków)
The technical fund. The team are engineers — ex-Google, ex-Allegro CTO, ex-Motorola — not spreadsheet people, and they say so loudly: reality over hype. They’ll interrogate your technology, not your projections, and they’re comfortable with quantum, new materials, biotech, and other things most funds can’t evaluate. Reported 170% on Fund I.
Pitch them if: your risk is technical, not commercial, and you want investors who actually understand the science. Skip if: you’re a pure go-to-market or marketplace play.
Hard2beat
Pre-seed · deep tech · PFR Starter / FENG-backed (~84M PLN)
The most aggressive new deep-tech fund on the market — 10 deals in their first 12 months. Founded by serial operators (Piwik Pro / Clearcode lineage). The whole thesis is defensibility: a genuine technical moat that can’t be copied, across medtech, cybersecurity, and dual-use / defense. Early portfolio: Neuromedical, Defguard, DefendEye, Pikralida.
Pitch them if: you’re a technical team with a hard-to-replicate edge, especially anything dual-use. Skip if: your advantage is speed or brand rather than technology.
S20
Pre-seed · €100–300k · private, fast
Partners from SpeedUp spun out a small, agile, fully private vehicle. The pitch is speed and conviction: they’ll commit quickly and back high-agency founders before the round is obvious — pre-traction is fine. Tilt toward “People & Planet” verticals (edtech, digital health, cleantech, future of work) but flexible around it. Came out of stealth on the back of 10 early investments.
Pitch them if: you want a fast yes at the idea or MVP stage from an experienced team. Skip if: you need a large lead check to anchor the round.
SMOK Ventures
Pre-seed / seed · €100–600k· US–Polish, Bay Area bridge
That’s us, so we’ll keep it short. Ex-founders. We connect the Bay Area to Poland and CEE, we write early, and we like dev tools and industry-specific AI agents. Recent bets include Paypercut, Spacer Robotics, MOS Health and Slickshift.
Pitch us if: you’re a technical CEE founder building for a global — especially US — market and you want that network on the cap table from day one. Skip if: you’re regional-only by design.
Sunfish Partners
Pre-seed / seed · ~€250k first check · deep tech · German–Polish
Offices in Berlin and Warsaw. Backs technical founders in space, defense, and digital health / data — and increasingly leaning into the defense and European-sovereignty end. Named Polish VC of the Year in 2023. Fund II explicitly widened beyond Poland into the broader CEE region.
Pitch them if: you’re deep tech with a sovereignty or dual-use angle. Skip if: you’re consumer or generic SaaS.
Funds that lean later but write pre-seed checks for the right deal
These aren’t pre-seed shops. But each one will come in early when the deal is strong enough — worth knowing exactly when that switch flips.
Inovo (Inovo Venture Partners)
Seed-first · €0.5–4m · post-traction · CEE
The region’s flagship early-stage fund and the first Polish VC to raise a third fund (targeting ~€100m). Booksy, Packhelp, Zowie, Preply, Brand24, Tidio. They’re seed-and-up by design; pre-seed happens only as an exception, via small “discovery tickets” (~€100–250k) in deals they’re convinced about.
Pitch them if: you have real traction and want a strong brand-name seed lead in CEE. At pre-seed: only if you’re already a hot round.
Market One Capital (MOC)
Pre-seed / seed · up to ~€1.5m · marketplaces & network effects · pan-European
Europe’s specialist marketplace and network-effects fund — €140m across two funds. Portfolio includes Tier, Packhelp. Most of their deals are post-launch, but they’ll go pre-seed, even pre-launch, when the network-effects thesis is clearly there.
Pitch them if: you’re building a marketplace or platform where network effects are the whole game. Skip if: your business doesn’t have a platform dynamic.
Movens Capital
Pre-seed to Series A · €250k–3m · multi-stage · CEE
A frequent co-investor of ours. €60m Fund II, backed by EBRD and PFR Ventures, and they lead most of their rounds. The center of gravity is seed / Series A — they do pre-seed selectively — across enterprise software, AI, fintech, health, and climate. Packhelp, Alokai, Talkie.ai, Doctor.one.
Pitch them if: you want a lead that can keep following on all the way through Series A. At pre-seed: selective, and stronger if you already have signal.
How to actually use this list
The stage tags matter more than the logos. Pitching a €4m seed lead on a pre-revenue idea wastes everyone’s week; pitching a pre-seed micro-fund to lead a €3m round does the same. Match the check to your round, then match the thesis to your company.
And the honest part: nobody backs everyone. A “no” from a deep-tech fund on your marketplace isn’t a signal about your company — it’s a signal you knocked on the wrong door.
If you’re a CEE founder at pre-seed building dev tools or industry-specific AI agents, that’s our lane. Reach out.
This is a living list — the Polish pre-seed market is moving fast in 2026, and we’ll keep it current.