The Polish venture firm Vastpoint Ventures has launched its debut fund, which is targeting €18 million ($22 million) and will invest in early-stage artificial intelligence, software-as-a-service and healthtech start-ups.
The Warsaw-based firm is launching Vastpoint I together with PFR Ventures, part of the Polish Development Fund and Central and Eastern Europe’s largest fund of funds manager, as part of the European Funds for Smart Economy program. Checks to seed-stage companies will range from €500,000-€750,000. It has also opened an office in New York.
The three women founders of Vastpoint – Aleksandra Pedraszewska, Karolina Kukiełka and Zuzanna Brzosko – are all entrepreneurs and operators and take pride in having “lived the early-stage grind ourselves,” as the company said in a recent LinkedIn post.
Pedraszewska was an early employee at ElevenLabs, a Polish-founded unicorn that developed an AI audio platform that creates realistic speech. Kukiełka was formerly an investor at InReach Ventures, a London firm that backs early-stage European start-ups focusing on software and AI. Brzosko, a neuroscientist, founded Sixfold Bioscience, a London biotech start-up backed by Y Combinator, and subsequently worked at pharma giant Eli Lilly.
“We have experienced first-hand the challenges of building from 0 to 1. We have done hyper-growth (ElevenLabs), invested first checks (InReach) and led acquisitions within global corporations (Eli Lilly),” the company said in a LinkedIn post. “We understand what founders need at every stage: from raising seed capital to exit.”
“We wouldn’t be here without our network – unicorn founders, top-tier investors and global tech leaders – who are now helping open doors for the next generation of Polish start-ups. With a presence in Warsaw and New York, we’re connecting local talent to global opportunities,” the post continued.
Vastpoint decided to focus its investments in AI, SaaS and healthtech because those are verticals in which “Poland has exceptional technical talent and where our team brings deep domain expertise,” the LinkedIn post said. “At the pre-seed and seed stage, we invest first in people: founders with grit, technical depth, product obsession and a clear vision for scaling globally.”
Taking a cue from Y Combinator, Vastpoint is putting mentorship at the center of its approach. Mati Staniszewski, co-founder and CEO at ElevenLabs, and Thomas Clozel, co-founder and CEO at Owkin, a developer of machine learning tools to enhance medical and biological research, are among the mentors that Vastpoint’s founders will have access to. With additional support from “operators from multiple industries, we want to inspire our founders and support where needed – from accounting to team-building,” Vastpoint said.
