Fundraising Venture Capital in USA for Polish innovations
However challenging it may sound, some attempts have recently been made at drawing the US market’s attention to Polish innovations, with Black Pearls VC playing a relevant role in this task. We took part in a mission to the US that can result in fostering the Polish-American cooperation.
A group of Polish entrepreneurs, supported by innovation experts, have visited the US East Coast to initiate business relations with would-be American partners. The Polish visiting team included a selection of 25 innovative Polish firms from the IT, biomedical and financial sectors, joined by experts from the Polish Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Development and the National Centre for Research and Development. Black Pearls VC had the honour to get included in the guest list as a top Polish venture capital fund.
Our goal was to search for investors and partners for our new special-purpose investing vehicle. It was a good occasion to meet not only Polish American business people interested in cooperation with Polish firms, but also representatives of US venture capital environment and business angels.
”Together with the Polish Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf we discussed the idea of organizing a series of events that would promote Polish VC funds and Polish high-tech projects in the US and to Polish Americans. This could result in raising capital for future rounds of financing or even possible acquisitions”, said Alexander Lubański, Managing Partner in Black Pearls VC. “We will now work together to make this happen”, he added.
The agenda of the mission included exploring Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), LabCentral, and Boston’s Innovation District, which are all designed as launchpad space for startups, housing a number of offices and labs for creative and aspiring entrepreneurs. CIC boasts ”more startups than anywhere else on the planet” and companies originally based at CIC (with locations also in Boston, Miami, St. Louis and – outside of the US – in Rotterdam) have raised a total of $1.8 billion in venture capital.