This article is a part of Poland Unpacked. Weekly intelligence for decision-makers
Hard2beat has just got bigger. The fund’s partners have revealed that its capitalization has increased from PLN 84 million (EUR 19.7 million) to PLN 110.3 million (EUR 25.9 million). The additional capital will give it more firepower to back technology companies.
Hard2beat has been operating for only two years. It has already invested in nine companies but sees room to do more. To that end, it has secured a substantial injection of additional capital from its investors.
“We increased the capitalization entirely through our existing investors. We did not bring in any new investors from outside. That gives us confidence that, at least for now, things are going well and our investors are satisfied with our work,” says Maciej Zawadziński, a partner at Hard2beat.
Most of the additional capital came from PFR Ventures, which increased its commitment from PLN 56.5 million (EUR 13.3 million) to PLN 80 million (EUR 18.8 million). The increase is about more than simply having more money to deploy. The fund’s partners want to use it to maintain their investment pace as deep-tech rounds become more expensive, reserve more capital for the strongest companies in their portfolio, expand further into foreign investments and deepen their relationships with European venture-capital funds.
Hard2beat gets even bigger
The fund has now completed its second close.
“We had a lot of interest from investors who wanted to join the fund. We decided to keep the original investor base, but increase the scale of our operations,” says Maciej Frankowicz, a partner at Hard2beat.
At the same time, demand from existing investors once again exceeded the amount the fund could accept while preserving the structure required under the PFR Starter program.
This marks the second important milestone in the fund’s short history. Hard2beat was selected in the first call under the new edition of PFR Starter and, in September 2024, was among the first four funds with which PFR Ventures signed agreements under the European Funds for a Modern Economy program. It initially had PLN 84 million (EUR 19.7 million) at its disposal, including PLN 56.5 million (EUR 13.3 million) contributed by PFR Ventures. At the time, it was the largest fund by capitalization in the first group selected under the Starter program.
Expert's perspective
Why PFR Ventures put its trust in Hard2beat
A bigger fund, but not more companies
The increase in capitalization does not amount to a fundamental change in strategy. Hard2beat still plans to build a portfolio of around 24 companies and remains focused on deep tech – from biotech and medtech to cybersecurity, developer infrastructure, dual-use solutions and advanced hardware.
“The funding environment for these companies has changed. Our fund’s initial ticket turned out to be larger than expected and has averaged more than PLN 2 million (EUR 470,000). We still want to acquire stakes large enough for the success of a single company to have a meaningful impact on the performance of the entire vehicle,” adds Maciej Zawadziński.
The partners are targeting stakes of around 5%, 10% and, in some cases, more than 10%. Over the full investment cycle, the average amount invested per company is expected to exceed PLN 4 million (EUR 940,000).
“Rounds are larger than they were a few years ago. We want to hold clearly minority, but still meaningful, equity stakes in our companies, and we can see that this cannot be achieved with small PLN 1 million (EUR 235,000) tickets. The companies are more ambitious, they are targeting higher valuations and larger exits, but if we want to create value, we also have to invest more from the outset,” adds Maciej Frankowicz.
The larger fund is not intended to be “used up” by increasing the number of investment bets. Rather, the aim is to preserve the fund’s original portfolio structure in an environment where strong deep-tech companies are raising larger rounds.
Backing the strongest companies
The second part of the equation is follow-on funding. According to the fund’s managers, roughly half of the budget earmarked for initial investments has already been deployed, but a significant portion of the full PLN 110.3 million (EUR 25.9 million) remains reserved for later rounds in the best-performing portfolio companies.
“We expect that not all companies will succeed, and certainly not to the same extent. We want to be able to double down on those that are performing best,” says Maciej Frankowicz.
Expert's perspective
Things are improving, but there is still a lot to do
Even so, given the quality of Poland’s engineering talent, there are still relatively few companies with a genuinely global reach. Many businesses develop as foreign companies – US-based ElevenLabs and Finland-based ICEYE, for example, have outstanding Polish founders, but are headquartered outside Poland. Few companies also tap European support programs: we have only a handful of recipients under NATO DIANA or the EIC Accelerator.
In short, the talent is there, but commercialization remains a major challenge: building international sales, gaining access to large customers, scaling production and financing subsequent, much larger funding rounds.
Another problem is early-stage financing. Polish business angels do not invest in deep tech very often, and when they do, they are the exception rather than the rule – credit here to Marian Popinigis. A good investor should above all open doors to customers and industrial partners, help raise subsequent funding rounds and support the company in building an international team and entering new markets. In many sectors, this also means helping with regulation, certification and public procurement. Polish business angels and early-stage funds usually lack these networks and this expertise.
To sum up, the situation is certainly better than it was 10 years ago, but it still falls short of Poland’s intellectual potential. In 2025, according to a PFR report, around EUR 402 million in VC capital was invested in Polish deep-tech companies. That may sound respectable, but EUR 321 million went to two mega-rounds – ElevenLabs and ICEYE. These are not Polish companies. By comparison, Spanish deep tech attracted EUR 878 million in 2025, according to Dealroom – ten times more.
Moving into Starter Science
A large share of the fund’s new capitalization comes from PFR Ventures, whose commitment is increasing from PLN 56.5 million (EUR 13.3 million) to PLN 80 million (EUR 18.8 million). Hard2beat’s partners also link the increase to the fund’s entry into Starter Science, a track created by PFR Ventures to finance projects emerging from the scientific community.
PFR Starter Science offers more favorable economics for fund managers and private investors if a sufficiently large share of the capital is invested in science-linked companies. If the target conditions are met, the asymmetric profit-sharing mechanism in favor of private capital can reach 3.5 times its proportional stake. PFR says the program is intended to address one of the traditional weaknesses of Poland’s ecosystem – too few investments in projects spun out of universities and research institutes.
For Hard2beat, this is not a radical shift. From the outset, the fund’s investments were intended to be based on technologies that are difficult to replicate. In May 2025, when the fund disclosed its first three deals, PLN 7.5 million (EUR 1.8 million) went to medtech company Cogniguard, cybersecurity firm Defguard and autonomous-drone developer DefendEye.
“Since then, the pace has clearly accelerated. In 2025, Hard2beat invested more than PLN 30 million (EUR 7.0 million) in nine companies: Defguard, DefendEye, Cogniguard, Pikralida, Ludus AI, Melanos Care, Graftcode, WIDMO and Science4Beauty, the last of which was announced in early September. More investments are already on the horizon. Two deals are awaiting announcement, while three more are in the final stage of completion. We expect to make at least eight new investments in total this year, and we have also already completed our first three follow-on investments,” adds Konrad Trzyna, a partner at Hard2beat.
Expert's perspective
Polish deep tech expects more than funding
They also benefit from more experience, both their own and that accumulated across the wider ecosystem. The number of weak early-stage funds has declined, as has startups’ willingness to work with them. Historically, many excellent projects became stuck precisely because of poor investors. Today, deep-tech companies have a much clearer understanding of their goals and priorities, which in turn is forcing funds investing in this segment to raise their own standards.
The expectations now go well beyond financial support. Companies want help with internationalization, industrial deployment, and access to networks and expertise. That is much more than the familiar idea of “smart money.” It means bringing the fund in as, effectively, a late co-founder. Expectations, activities and involvement of this kind are now becoming standard practice – and rightly so. Ultimately, we are partners in the same company, so we should build the business together.
The first portfolio companies are beginning to prove themselves
It is still far too early for major exits. Hard2beat’s oldest investments are only a little over a year old, while most of the others are 12 months old or less. The managers therefore acknowledge that the portfolio is still in what they themselves describe as a “honeymoon period.” So far, there is no company the fund would regard as a candidate for a write-off. Some, however, are beginning to pull ahead of the rest.
The most visible example is DefendEye. In August, the company announced another funding round led by NovaCapital. The round also included Hard2beat, ff Venture Capital, Sunfish Partners and In-Q-Tel, the strategic technology investor established in 1999 at the initiative of the CIA. DefendEye wants to develop autonomous drone systems and scale up production in the United States.
The managers also point to rising sales at Defguard, which is developing a VPN and access-management platform for enterprises. At Cogniguard, the first batch of devices is already expected to have been manufactured, and the company is preparing for commercialization once certification is complete.
“There are many more deep-tech projects in Poland than there used to be, but still too few to specialize in just one area. We are seeing particularly strong activity in medtech and biotech, but we treat deep tech as a broad specialization and want to capture the best projects regardless of the specific sector,” says Konrad Trzyna.
Delaware is no longer a barrier
A second change that could prove as important for Hard2beat as the increase in capitalization is the liberalization of rules governing investments in companies with foreign corporate structures.
Until now, one problem involved companies founded by Poles, employing teams or conducting research and development in Poland, but structured from the outset with a parent company, for example, in Delaware.
“That was a real constraint. Many founders of excellent deep-tech companies set them up in Delaware from day one, which meant we could not invest in them. There were not very many such companies, but they were often exactly the ones we found particularly interesting,” adds Konrad Trzyna.
Hard2beat says it is roughly halfway toward building its target portfolio. The broader investment mandate is therefore coming into effect just as the team is preparing to make the second half of its planned deals.
The first moves have already been made. A few weeks ago, the fund completed its first investment in a company registered in Germany and led by a Polish founder. The project has not yet been announced; it operates in software infrastructure and storage. The partners also plan to participate in a funding round for a French startup whose team includes Polish employees and which is conducting one of its clinical trials in Białystok in north-eastern Poland. The round is expected to be led by foreign investors and finalized later this year.
Capital alone is no longer enough
The boom around AI is reshaping the strategies of more VC teams, which are increasingly turning toward deep tech. Hard2beat wants to stay ahead of that shift by building access to networks of Polish scientists and foreign investors.
“We are steadily building that network. At the beginning, we are a partner that gives more than it takes: we show foreign funds interesting projects and help with funding rounds. Ultimately, we want to get to the point where they come to us, asking us to help validate a project and invest alongside them,” says Maciej Zawadziński.
The fund is also deliberately avoiding businesses that may be attractive only on the Polish market. Its target is companies positioned internationally from day one. That entails greater risk, but it also creates a structure that is better suited to later financing by large European and US venture-capital funds.
Expert's perspective
Capital alone is no longer enough
“We are steadily building that network. At the beginning, we are a partner that gives more than it takes: we show foreign funds interesting projects and help with funding rounds. Ultimately, we want to get to the point where they come to us, asking us to help validate a project and invest alongside them,” says Maciej Zawadziński.
The fund is also deliberately avoiding businesses that may be attractive only on the Polish market. Its target is companies positioned internationally from day one. That entails greater risk, but it also creates a structure that is better suited to later financing by large European and US venture-capital funds.
The Moat aims to bring foreign capital to Warsaw
The most visible part of this strategy will be The Moat, a deep-tech-only event taking place on September 23 at CEDET in Warsaw. It is expected to bring together around 200 people. The organizer has already announced investors from more than 30 foreign funds, including Earlybird, Lakestar, SOSV, Project A, Keen Venture Partners, Kaya VC, MMC Ventures and Archangel.
According to Hard2beat’s partners, invitations were sent to more than 50 foreign funds. Well over 100 deep-tech companies applied to take part. Thirty selected companies will gain access to meetings with investors, while ten will pitch on the main stage.
“Poland is attracting interest from foreign investors, but many of them lack a local network and a sufficiently strong local pipeline. The Moat is intended to shorten the route to the best companies,” says Konrad Trzyna.
The event is meant to serve both as an investment tool and as an opportunity to build relationships. The fund’s managers want to position Hard2beat as a local partner for funds in London, Berlin or Silicon Valley that cannot independently track the Polish market at the pre-seed and seed stages.
The next fund will be larger and more regional
The second close at PLN 110.3 million (EUR 25.9 million) is intended to be the last for Hard2beat’s first fund. The partners are not planning a third increase in capitalization. Once around 70% of the capital has been committed, the team’s attention is expected to shift gradually toward the next vehicle.
Initial internal work on the new fund is planned for the fourth quarter of 2027, with the actual fundraising process set to begin in 2028. The next fund is expected to be larger, remain focused on deep tech and keep Poland as its core market, while expanding its reach across the region.
“We will definitely want to build a larger fund, because deep-tech projects require more capital. Poland will remain our main market, but we are already seeing strong projects from abroad and we will want to expand more actively across the region,” says Maciej Zawadziński.
Key Takeaways
- Hard2beat has increased the capitalization of its first fund from PLN 84 million (EUR 19.7 million) to PLN 110.3 million (EUR 25.9 million), while keeping its existing investor base unchanged. PFR Ventures provided the largest share of the additional capital, increasing its commitment from PLN 56.5 million (EUR 13.3 million) to PLN 80 million (EUR 18.8 million). The fund does not, however, plan to increase the number of companies in its portfolio, which is still expected to total around 24. The additional capital is intended primarily to support larger initial investments and bigger follow-on rounds in the strongest-performing companies. The managers note that deep-tech rounds are now larger, while Hard2beat’s average initial ticket has risen above PLN 2 million (EUR 470,000). Over the full investment cycle, the average amount invested per company is expected to exceed PLN 4 million (EUR 940,000).
- The fund remains focused on deep tech in the broad sense, including biotech, medtech, cybersecurity, developer infrastructure, dual-use solutions and advanced hardware. Its entry into the PFR Starter Science track is expected to expand its ability to finance projects emerging from the scientific community. Hard2beat is roughly halfway through building its portfolio, and its first companies are beginning to make operational progress and raise additional funding. The partners point to DefendEye, Defguard and Cogniguard as examples. At the same time, they stress that it is still far too early to assess the performance of the portfolio as a whole or expect any significant exits.
- A key part of the next phase of the strategy will be greater openness to foreign corporate structures and international investors. Liberalized rules are expected to allow Hard2beat to invest, among other things, in companies founded by Polish entrepreneurs outside Poland that previously did not meet the program’s requirements. The fund has already made its first investment in a company registered in Germany and is preparing another transaction in France. In parallel, it wants to establish itself as a partner for European and US VC funds interested in Polish deep tech. The Moat event is intended to support that effort. The first fund will not be expanded further, while work on a second, larger and more regional vehicle is expected to begin in late 2027, with fundraising planned for 2028.