Protos VC

Projects from which industries: internet and mobile in general, with a specialization in business models, specifically marketplace and SaaS, where we have the most experience, which allows us to better help founders build their companies and achieve success.

Activities and origins: The fund was established in 2013 as an extension of our previous joint investments as business angels. The founders of the fund managed to invest in projects such as Brainly.com, Docplanner.com and Infakt.pl, so we decided to set up a VC fund to invest on a larger scale. The fund was established by 5 people who combine experience in managing VC and PE funds and building internet startups.

What stage the project must be at: Ideally, the founders should have had a working product that has been generating revenue for at least a few months. As a rule, we do not invest in PowerPoint companies. We want to see the project's unit economics in action.

Investment amount: On average, the fund invests around PLN 1 million in one project. The minimum investment in one project was 50,000 PLN and the maximum investment was 3.5 million PLN.

Investment examples: The fund has invested in 15 companies. Three companies were exited, so there are currently 12 startups in the fund's portfolio. Eight of them are marketplace/lead generation projects and four are Software as a Service projects.

The most famous are:

• Lokalnyrolnik.pl, a marketplace for healthy food straight from the farmer.
• Lavito.pl – a platform that allows you to book an appointment with a hairdresser or beautician online
• Wedding.pl – a marketplace for wedding services
• Pobistro.com – point of sale software for the catering industry
• Gamekit.com – lead generation for the gaming industry
• Shoplo.com – CMS for setting up your own online shop
• Positionly.com – SEO analytics software
• Starofservice.com – marketplace for local services

The fund's greatest success: it is still to come because the companies in our portfolio are constantly growing :)

Biggest investment failure: several companies we were supposed to invest in but didn't for various reasons.

Advantages of Polish entrepreneurs: entrepreneurship in general and good technological skills.

Disadvantages of Polish entrepreneurs: lack of knowledge about scaling up a business and looking at their business in too short a perspective.