Poznan, 27.03.14

Opinions

Seeds of innovation – where do we look for it?

In the last years, there has been a rapid development of seed capital funds in Poland - it happened mainly due to the multi-million financial support from the European Union (including the years from 2007 to 2013, under the 3.1 Action of "Initiating Business Innovation" within a framework of theInnovative Economy Operational Program) and from the National Capital Fund (KrajowyFunduszKapitałowy). As a result, according to PARP, in 2012 the country had 10 ‘Business Angels’ (AniołyBiznesu) networks and over 60 seed capital funds.

In the opinion of the experts and involved parties, most of these, as well as other business institutions, areoperating on the "so-so" level. It is very likely that a significant part of projects financed from EU funds will be soon closed, - that is after the projects’ implementation period. If that happens, it simply means that the money "was wasted" - investments did not bring any returns and there is no capital for another, and the standard of operation of these entities did not address the real needs of the market.

Within the next ‘deal’, including the years of 2014 - 2020, the EU will therefore prefer those beneficiaries who can already show some real successes - money for starting a seed capital fund will be given faster to thosewho have previously led business incubators, a business angels club or a science – technology park.Within a framework of the Intelligent Development Operational Program, axis II - "THE GROWTH OF THE INNOVATIVE POTENTIAL OF ENTERPRISES" (WZROST POTENCJAŁU INNOWACYJNEGO PRZEDSIĘBIORSTW), any measures will be given to commercialize the results of research and development, to support capital funds (including Private Equity/Venture Capital funds, seed funds and angels networks), as well as to develop an increased cooperation between various centers of the business. There is also a talk of the need to stimulate the "cross-linking" and clustering between different companies, as well as between firms and universities and business support institutions.

Some of those programs have a ‘transnational’ character, which means that we will have to compete for the funds directly with candidates from other countries - it is difficult to be optimisticin such a situation, since in our country a concept of a "cluster" is still associated by a lot of people with the biology and chemistry lesson, rather than a group of entities cooperating with each other.

The growth of specialized pro-innovation services is consistent with the strategic direction of development in Europe. Meanwhile, Poland's innovation is in the European “tail”. The years of 2014 – 2020 will either help us catch up, or will cause us being even further behind. The observation of our native venture capital and private equity markets is the thing that may give hope and optimistic thoughts - you can say that 10 years ago this industry did not exist in Poland, later on our country was an emerging market for these entities, and meanwhile,for more or less 2 years now, representatives of these funds say that Poland has already become a mature market.

Maybethen seed capital will eventually reach the higher level of professionalization?A lot depends on the competence of people who manage investments, on the implementation of good practices (i.e. those already developed by entities that have enjoyed success previously, as well as abroad, or within the PE/VC market, which should be a natural reference point for seed capital). I believe in the eternal law–the best and strongest will survive.

Aleksandra Eneje,Partner, IT Director. In Datapoint she is the IT Director. She also is responsible for business development, including identifying new areas for development. She is a speaker at numerous business conferences.She gained her experience as an IT systems analyst in the multinational corporations such as Procter&Gamble and GlaxoSmithKline.After hours she is passionate for travelling and trekking.

Datapointis a pioneer on the Polish capital market. The company supports the largest M&A, IPO, Private Equity and privatization projects in Poland and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, based on the technology of a Virtual Data Room. The Datapoint VDR increased security and the effectiveness of several hundred transactions with a total value of over 29 billion, with a total of more than 20,000 users from hundreds of independent companies from around the world. Our aim is to identify the needs in terms of safe management of confidential documents for specific industries and meet them basing on a technology of the Virtual Data Room. The DATAPOINT services are used by the industry leaders in Poland and abroad, including Private Equity Enterprise Investors fund, NFI Empik, ZELMER, Bank DNB, BOŚ Bank, PolimexMostostal, Budimex, DM PKO BankuPolskiego, Deloitte Advisory, Ernst&Young Corporate Finance, KPMG Advisory, Śnieżka, Enea, JSW, Espirito Santo Investment Bank and many others.

In September 2014 the company changed its name to FORDATA, more:

Contact for media:

Aleksandra Prusator,e-mail: tel: 506 044 056

BeataMilewicz, e-mail: tel: 508 051 138

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