A weekend full of investments

On April 5-6, the NCBR Investment Fund team participated in Invest Cuffs 2024, the largest conference for investors in Poland. These were two days filled with activities, panel discussions and networking.

On the first day of the event, there was a debate „Investments in deeptech startups through the eyes of a VC fund, a business angel and a university” with the participation of Ksenia Wójcik-Karasiewicz, President of the Management Board of NIF ASI S.A. She was accompanied in the conversation by Justyna Topolska, PhD from the Center for Cooperation and Technology Transfer of the AGH University of Science and Technology, Monika Borowiecka from Tangent Line, Dominik Krawczyk from Cobin Angels and Sławomir Olejnik.

– When investing in deeptech, you need to conduct an in-depth analysis. First of all, we need to understand what exactly this technology is, think about its potential. We need to look into the future – where the market is going, where the world is going and whether the company we are interested in is able to change something in a given segment. And the most important factor – people. About 60% of the company’s success are the people behind it. If the company’s founders are the best engineers but do not have a vision for its development, the investment often turns out to have little future, said president Ksenia Wójcik-Karasiewicz during the panel.

Investor’s involvement in the company’s operations

The next panel with the participation of a NIF representative was „Smart Money – how an investor should (or should not) get involved in the company’s life.” Piotr Soroka, Investment Manager at NIF ASI S.A. took part in it, together with Paweł Zych from Warsaw University of Technology Investment Factory, Maciej Jankowski from Blockchain Alliance and Jarosław Kaczmarczyk from ZeroQs.

– I represent a passive fund that selects co-investors who will lead the rounds. This is a well-received practice on the market because it is worth having typically financial investors who usually have great opportunities to implement follow-on, i.e. „add in” capital as needed. Often, many funds on the Polish market, especially those supported by public programs, have a very narrow scope of action in terms of follow-on, explained Piotr Soroka during the panel. – In the West, an approach has been adopted in which investors of earlier rounds should also take at least a small percentage of the share in subsequent rounds. This is a kind of confirmation that investors still believe in the company.

We would like to thank everyone for fruitful discussions and interesting meetings.