Totalizator Sportowy, Poland’s state-owned lottery operator, has set up a PLN100m ($26.8m) corporate venturing fund managed by venture capital firm FFVC.
The FFVC Tech and Gaming fund will invest in 10 to 15 startups in the gaming, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, drones, robotics, enterprise software, regulation and financial industries by the end of 2023.
Totalizator Sportowy set up the fund with the support of state-backed fund of funds PFR Ventures and the National Centre for Research and Development (Narodowe Centrum Badań i Rozwoju, NCBR) through the PFR NCBR CVC program.
The fund will invest in companies at an early stage of development, mainly in Poland and central and eastern Europe and then be linked to the US ecosystem through FFVC’s New York office under John Frankel, founder and partner of ffVC.
Frankel will manage the fund alongside his partners, US-based Adam Plotkin and Poland-based Mariusz Adamski and Maciej Skarul.
Olgierd Cieślik, president of the management board of Totalizator Sportowy, said: “The creation of a corporate venture capital fund is the implementation of one of the announced strategic initiatives for 2017-2020. Continuation of the technological transformation of Totalizator Sportowy requires us not only to cooperate with the global giants of the gaming market, but also to be open to the implementation of products and services provided by young innovative companies, including Polish startups.”
Maciej Ćwikiewicz, president of PFR Ventures, added: “We are pleased with the selection of industries in which the new CVC will be active. Experienced game producers attract enormous interest on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, and now just starting studies and projects can count on alternative capital.”
Poland’s Totalizator set ups fund with FFVC
