History
The coalition was initiated by Borys Musielak, the founder of the Reaktor coworking center, and entrepreneurs Michał Juda and Jan Stasz. 150 startup founders supported them. The Foundation's Council consisted of, among others Piotr Wilam, a pioneer of the Polish Internet, and Konrad Latkowski, the organizer of the Startup Weekend events, while in the Program Council - incl. mentors Rafał Brzoska and Michał Brański. The Foundation's program declaration was presented in November 2014. In April 2015, Eliza Kruczkowska became the first president of the Foundation. In October 2016 she was replaced by Julia Krysztofiak-Szopa. In April 2020, Tomasz Snażyk stood at the helm of the Foundation.
Objectives
Startup Poland promotes regulations and recommends those activities that best stimulate technological entrepreneurship.
This strong technology think tank has set itself the goal of identifying and then eliminating systemic barriers in Polish law and administration that limit rapid growth and development
young companies.
The Foundation works for the development of technological entrepreneurship and the development of startup financing infrastructure. He also represents the interests of technology entrepreneurs in dialogue with the Polish public administration, European Union institutions, as well as corporations and the academic community.
Program postulates
The main barriers and challenges facing Polish startups were presented by the Foundation in the program declaration during the European Economic Congress on April 22, 2015.
Postulates of the Startup Poland Foundation:- promoting the culture of investing in startups by creating conditions conducive to the emergence of strong market ventures;
- consulting with the public sector on legal changes supporting the development of the startup ecosystem, which will result in the selection of the most useful and scalable projects;
- providing citizens with more data collected in public offices;
- creating the position of Chief Technology Officer in the Polish administration, i.e. a plenipotentiary for technological innovations at the government and local government level, a person deciding on the direction of applying modern technologies;
- increasing the attractiveness of the Polish economy for entrepreneurs and specialists from outside the European Union by creating a simple and transparent system for granting visas;
- introducing entrepreneurship lessons in schools, conducted by trained teachers, with the support of practitioners;
- introducing effective incentives to create programs educating technological entrepreneurs, conducted by venture capital funds and local communities.
- developing simple procedures for transferring public funds and a better mechanism for distributing funds from the European Union for investors who offer not only financial but also substantive support.
- introducing favorable tax mechanisms - changes in the regulations of a joint-stock company and a limited joint-stock partnership, similar to convertible debt, and enabling the use of option pool in a limited liability company and in a joint-stock company - legal forms adapted to the sale of their shares under equity crowdfunding - which would significantly increase the interest of business angels in investing in young, innovative enterprises in Poland.
- creating a support system and procedures for investing in startups - in the form of a catalog of services made available via API, used in all offices, at every level of administration.