Poland Unpacked week 26 (15 - 21 June 2026)

Grupa Pracuj is the leading job platform in Poland and Ukraine, but its ambitions extend across Europe. The company already operates in several markets, including Germany, where it acquired softgarden. A year ago, it unveiled a strategy aimed at reaching PLN 1.4 billion (approximately EUR 327 million) in revenue and PLN 560 million (approximately EUR 131 million) in adjusted profit by 2030. While the EBITDA target remains firmly on track, revenue growth has been significantly slower than planned, rising just 5 percent last year.

“I never give up,” says Przemysław Gacek, who co-founded Grupa Pracuj in 2000 and has served as CEO ever since. He discusses the company’s new approach to M&A, the painful correction in its valuation (its market capitalization has fallen from more than PLN 5 billion, or roughly EUR 1.17 billion, when it listed on the stock exchange in 2021 to PLN 3.3 billion, or approximately EUR 771 million, today), its plans for AI, and the biggest threats facing job platforms and HR software providers. He also speaks about his passion: sailing. Read the interview here.

If you think Przemysław Gacek has spent a long time at his company, consider Dr. Bogusław Gnatowski, who has been an entrepreneur since the 1980s. Today, he heads Alab Laboratoria, Poland’s second-largest diagnostic laboratory network. The company is valued on the stock exchange at around PLN 6 billion (approximately EUR 1.4 billion).

Alab continues to pursue acquisitions and is planning to build a laboratory near Łódź that will match the scale of its Warsaw facility, processing between 12 million and 15 million tests annually. At the same time, Gnatowski points to increasingly difficult access to financing. Full story here.

“Obtaining a bank loan is, to put it mildly, a via dolorosa,” says the businessman.

Property developers may not be complaining about access to financing – they still fund most projects through bank loans, bonds, and equity – but a new fundraising campaign has just launched on the Crowd Real Estate platform. Trust Investment aims to raise PLN 11 million (approximately EUR 2.6 million) for a project in Radom.

Industry experts believe crowdfunding, which is more expensive than bank financing, will not replace traditional funding sources. They acknowledge, however, that raising capital this way is both simpler and faster. Across Europe – including France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy – the largest crowdfunding platforms have financed projects worth hundreds of millions of euros, and in some cases more than EUR 1 billion. Read about how it starts in Poland here.

Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, could invest as much as USD 20 billion in Poland. On June 22, during Taiwan Expo in Warsaw, the company and the business organization TEEMA are expected to announce the location of their planned technology park.

Details of what Foxconn will manufacture there – and which other Taiwanese companies will join the project – are unlikely to emerge before the autumn. Read here what has already been learned about the investment. Michał Jaros, Poland’s deputy minister for economic development, discusses the project. For the past 18 months, he has been working to attract Taiwanese investment to Poland.

Last week brought a wealth of interesting macroeconomic data. The most notable development was that Poland emerged as the regional leader in terms of actual individual consumption (AIC). This measure provides a better picture of living standards than GDP per capita, as it covers all goods and services consumed by households, regardless of whether they are purchased directly on the market or financed by the state.

According to the latest Eurostat data, Poland’s AIC reached 85% of the EU average in 2025, unchanged from 85% a year earlier. This nevertheless represented the second-largest increase among EU countries. Poland has also ranked among the leaders in AIC growth over the past decade. Read our short analysis here.

New data on inflation expectations in Poland show that they have returned to the levels seen before the outbreak of the Iran–US conflict. This is largely because inflation itself has risen only modestly in recent months, from 2.1% in February to 3.2% in April and 3.1% in May. In turn, this was largely the result of the government’s Lower Fuel Prices (CPN) program, which combined cuts in fuel excise duty and VAT with the introduction of price caps. As a result, Poland had some of the lowest fuel prices in Europe.

The macroeconomic effects of the program can, for now, be assessed positively, although it carries a fiscal cost. This is visible in the latest revenue data. In May, VAT revenues increased by just 2.2%, while excise-duty receipts fell by 14.9%. The shortfall could, however, be financed through a windfall-profits tax. See details here.

Industrial production data, meanwhile, reveal a widening divergence in business conditions. Sectors producing investment goods, intermediate goods (raw materials and components) and energy are performing strongly. Conditions are more mixed in industries producing non-durable consumer goods, such as pharmaceuticals and food products. By contrast, manufacturers of durable consumer goods – including furniture and consumer electronics and household appliances – continue to struggle with recessionary conditions.

The first heatwave of the summer swept across Poland at the end of last week. As temperatures rose, so too did the political temperature. The week's main story was a scandal at one of Warsaw's hospitals. Journalists from the news outlet Zero revealed the extraordinary earnings of a 28-year-old doctor who served as coordinator of the Emergency Department (ED) at Warsaw's Southern Hospital. The problem is that Dawid Kacprzyk had not yet completed a medical specialization. Why, then, was he appointed to such a prominent position?

Kacprzyk has since resigned from all his posts, but he had been the leader of the youth wing of Civic Coalition (the largest party in the governing coalition) and a councilor in one of Warsaw's districts. More damaging for Prime Minister Donald Tusk's camp, journalists also uncovered reports of preferential treatment for Civic Coalition politicians, who allegedly bypassed queues faced by ordinary patients. The symbol of the controversy became a so-called VIP lounge reserved exclusively for Civic Coalition politicians, which critics say epitomizes the governing coalition's detachment from society. Why has the hospital scandal generated such public outrage? And why has this particular case become Civic Coalition's most serious reputational crisis in months? Read our analysis here.

Scandals involving government politicians are usually a gift to the opposition. Politicians from Law and Justice (PiS), Confederation and Razem have been unsparing in their criticism of Donald Tusk's camp. PiS, however, has been reluctant to criticize doctors for alleged abuses, which has also exposed the party to criticism from disgruntled social-media users. Yet this is not PiS's biggest problem. Instead of capitalizing on Tusk's troubles, the party has found itself explaining an excursion by its radical wing to Berlin.

Polish-Ukrainian relations also reached boiling point on Friday evening and over the weekend. President Karol Nawrocki announced on Friday that, following President Volodymyr Zelensky's approval of naming one of Ukraine's Armed Forces units after the "Heroes of the UPA", and after consulting the Chapter of the Order of the White Eagle, he had decided to revoke the decoration previously awarded to Zelensky. The decision triggered a domino effect.

Former Ukrainian presidents Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko announced that they would renounce their Orders of the White Eagle in protest against President Karol Nawrocki's decision to strip the award from the incumbent Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Kuchma stressed that he had spent years working for Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation and rejected what he described as attempts to "dictate history to Ukraine". Yushchenko argued that questioning the decision to honor Zelensky amounted to an attack on the entire Ukrainian nation fighting Russian aggression. Poroshenko called Nawrocki's decision mistaken and unjust, saying it weakened Polish-Ukrainian unity.

Earlier, Zelensky himself had returned the Order of the White Eagle after Nawrocki revoked the award in response to the naming of a Ukrainian military unit after the "Heroes of the UPA". In solidarity with Zelensky, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine's ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar, the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office Kyrylo Budanov and his deputy Ihor Zhovkva also renounced Polish state decorations. Nawrocki insisted that his decision did not signal any change in Poland's support for Ukraine, while Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that the dispute between Warsaw and Kyiv delighted Russia and unsettled allies.

Robert Bąkiewicz, who is associated with PiS, led supporters from the Border Defense Movement (a xenophobic paramilitary group that, according to critics, unlawfully detained people on the Polish-German border last year) to erect a cross near a monument commemorating Poles murdered by Germany during the Second World War. The demonstration had not been registered with the German police, who intervened and detained the protesters. Critics view the event as a provocation that, by complete coincidence, was broadcast live by Telewizja Republika, a PiS-friendly television station often described as Poland's Fox News.

The anti-German rhetoric of PiS's radical wing has overshadowed the slow but steady efforts of Przemysław Czarnek, the party's candidate for prime minister, to win back voters lost in recent years. The PiS politician recently proposed raising the threshold for the higher income-tax band from PLN 120,000 (around EUR 28,000) a year to PLN 180,000 (around EUR 42,000). The proposal reflects the growing concerns of middle-class voters who, because of rising wages, are increasingly being pushed into higher tax brackets. This is no longer a matter of thousands of voters, but of millions seeking policies that benefit their household finances.

Interestingly, the proposal had previously been put forward by Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz of the governing Poland 2050 party. Can PiS seize the initiative in the battle for the votes of a dissatisfied middle class? Rafał Mrowicki examines the details of the proposal and the broader social context behind it here.

ElevenLabs, the most recognizable startup founded by Poles, has secured a Polish state-backed investor. The investor is Vinci, a fund within the state development bank Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego. The investment exceeded PLN 40 million (EUR 9.3 million; USD 11 million) and was carried out as part of an extended Series D funding round recently completed by the company. Vinci thus becomes the first Polish institutional investor in ElevenLabs.

A key element of the transaction may be support for the company in building AI Lab Poland – a Polish artificial intelligence technology hub intended to become an important center for AI development and, more broadly, to stimulate this segment of the Polish economy. Here's the story.

Another Polish AI and audio startup has also secured funding. Moody Pines raised capital from US venture funds as well as Poland’s S20. The company is developing voice AI technology based on collaboration with artists and a model in which creators retain control over the use of their voices. Here's all you need to know about it.

Warsaw-based Microamp has also secured financing, this time from the European Union. The company received EUR 6.5 million in funding, along with strategic support under the EIC Accelerator program, one of the EU’s most important instruments for supporting deep-tech development. The funds are intended to accelerate the development of its wireless Any-G mmWave AI-RAN platform, designed for 5G networks, future 6G deployments, and industrial applications requiring very high bandwidth and ultra-low latency. Read more on the matter in our article here.

Ingenix has received PLN 19 million (EUR 4.4 million) in EU funding for technology development. The project, worth nearly PLN 26 million (EUR 6.0 million), focuses on generative AI for predicting clinical trial outcomes. Meanwhile, another Polish biotech company, molecule.one, reported progress based on its collaboration with OpenAI. Its AI agent, Maria, identified a surprising additive that led to a breakthrough in the synthesis of new chemical compounds.

Polish investment funds have also recorded notable successes. Expeditions secured significant capital from UK defense giant BAE Systems. The company will invest EUR 50 million in venture capital funds supporting European defense-tech startups. Half of this allocation will go to the Polish-origin fund Expeditions and Lakestar.

Poland’s Market One Capital has invested in Spain’s Optiak, a developer of a modular operating system for enterprise AI. The round is valued at EUR 4 million. Movens Capital, in turn, participated in the SquarePlan round. The proptech company, which automates the creation of visualizations and floor plans for real estate, has raised USD 3 million since inception.

Recent days have also brought significant personnel changes at Google Poland. Dagmara Brzezińska will take over as the new Country Director of Google Poland from early September. She will lead the company’s business operations in the country and join Google Poland’s management team. She succeeds Magdalena Kotlarczyk, who announced in January that she would step down after nearly 15 years in the role.

Magda Dziewguć, head of Google Cloud in Poland, has also announced her departure from the company. “I am drawing a line here,” she wrote in her farewell statement. “Poland is an important global hub for technology development, a reservoir of talent and expertise in cutting-edge technologies, and holds a privileged starting position in the race for AI-driven success.”

If you still think “Polish fashion” means traditional countryside outfits with better lighting, Łódź is ready to correct you. The new exhibition at the Central Museum of Textiles, New Polish fashion. A chronicle of deep deelings is the first serious attempt to map what Polish fashion has actually been doing in the 21st century. And it turns out: quite a lot, and not quietly. This is not a parade of outfits but a story about identity, memory, and tension, where Sarmatian ghosts meet techno clubs, and lace-making traditions coexist with digital fabrics and latex experiments.

What makes the show worth your time is how sharply it frames fashion as a language of lived experience. Migration, queerness, post-gender identities, post-Yalta displacements, craft revivals – all stitched into clothes that travel from Łódź to London and New York without losing their local code. You get MISBHV next to folk references, Magda Butrym next to handwork techniques that survived decades of neglect, and designers who treat fabric as biography rather than decoration. It is less about trends and more about how Poland tells its story when it stops explaining itself and starts expressing it.

Where: Łódź, the Museum of Textiles (https://cmwl.pl/public/)

You may have seen that TikTok has rediscovered kompot aka fruit water. As a probiotic-adjacent, gut-friendly, slow-living elixir. Which is adorable for us here, because Poland has been boiling fruit into big enamel pots since long before it was algorithmically optimized.

Kompot was not a lifestyle choice. It was simply what you drank. Apples, strawberries, rhubarb -whatever the season or grandma's garden provided - went into water with sugar, simmered into something that tasted like summer. No hashtags, no fermentation discourse, just a glass poured straight from a chipped jug.

Now kompot has been rebranded. The West calls it “fruit infusion” or “natural soda,” adds ice cubes and films it in soft light. Meanwhile, in Poland, kompot never left. It is less of a comeback than a reminder: sometimes the future of food is just someone else discovering your past.