Central and Eastern Europe has more than 3,500 startups. Nearly a quarter of them are in Poland. By the first quarter of 2025, Poland’s startup ecosystem was valued at €58 billion, the highest in the region.
The country raised over €165 million in startup capital since the start of 2024, again more than any of its neighbors. Poland is no longer just a source of tech talent for other countries. It is building companies of its own and some of them are going global.
The foundations for this have been years in the making. Poland has around 600,000 software developers, more than a quarter of the entire Central and Eastern European total. In 2023, over 70,000 students enrolled in technology and computer science programs, keeping that pipeline strong.
Poland is also an EU member, giving its companies access to a market of 450 million consumers. Its location between Western Europe and fast-growing eastern markets adds another layer of advantage. For early-stage companies, these conditions matter.
Poland is the undisputed powerhouse of CEE tech talent. 📊
The data confirms the trend:
✅ 1 in 4 CEE startups are found in Poland.
✅ 25% of the region’s 600k developers are based in Poland. 🇵🇱
The ecosystem is ready. 💻
Check the facts
👉 https://t.co/aqKRmqhWdK pic.twitter.com/kWPcWS1CIf— PLinPakistan (@PLinPakistan) March 4, 2026
Brainly is one of the clearest examples of what those conditions can produce. In 2009, co-founder Michał Borkowski and his team launched the company from Kraków with a simple goal: make it easier for students to share knowledge. It grew into the world’s largest peer-to-peer digital learning platform, used by hundreds of millions of students across the globe.
Borkowski has pointed to Poland’s developer talent and its openness to international hires as key factors. When Brainly expanded into Indonesia, it brought Indonesian staff on board and those hires were willing to base themselves in Poland. That, in itself, said something about how the country’s reputation had changed.
A newer wave of Polish startups is now drawing similar attention. ElevenLabs, a Polish-founded voice AI company, raised €171 million in late 2024. Other Polish startups like Spacelift and Nomagic have secured backing from top-tier venture firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures.
In the first quarter of 2025 alone, Polish tech companies raised €442 million. Total capital invested rose 30 percent in Q2 2025 compared to the average of the previous five quarters, according to PFR Ventures, a government-backed investment fund that has been an active early supporter of the ecosystem.
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Authologic is one company that benefited from that early public support. Founded in Warsaw in 2020, it builds identity verification technology, helping businesses confirm who their users are by pulling data from banks, telecom providers, and government sources.
The problem it solves is growing more urgent as more of daily life moves online. In 2024, Authologic was accepted into Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley accelerator that also backed Stripe and Airbnb, and raised €7.6 million in a Series A round.
Co-founder Jarek Sygitowicz credits early access to talent and public funding for giving the company the room it needed to survive its difficult first years. A Series B round is now in preparation. The company operates across multiple markets but remains headquartered in Poland: a decision that reflects a broader shift in thinking among Polish founders.
That shift is visible across the Poland’s startup landscape. Rozalia Urbanek, chief investment officer at PFR Ventures, says that when founders succeed in Poland, they tend to come back as mentors, investors, and supporters of the next generation.
That cycle, she argues, is what is pushing the startup space to a new level. Investment is also maturing. A growing share of funding is going to later-stage companies with proven products and international customers, not just early stage bets. That is the profile serious global investors look for.
