ł.pitch Start-up Challenge

ł.pitch is the fastest growing project of the LSE SU Polish Business Society. It is a competition for pre-seed and seed polish startups that aims to both promote Poland as a great place to establish an innovative company and help it in development — moving away from the idea to the MVP (minimum viable product), or from the MVP to the POC (proof of concept), which in return makes the start-up more interesting to investors.

Motivated by the success of previous competition’s winners, we decided to further develop the ł.pitch Startup Challenge. The real impact of our competition is already visible. The winner of the 2020 edition, GGPredict, recently collected funding of USD 1 million for further development and expanded into the US and Scandinavian markets. The 2019 winner, Comixify, went through the Space3ac acceleration program where it had the opportunity to spend PLN 200 000 in development after it signed a contract with one of Poland’s biggest companies, PKN Orlen.

IV edition ł.pitch Startup Challenge

This year we aim to select, reward, and help the best Polish startups in the seed and post-seed financing stages to grow their businesses.

Four start-ups will qualify for the final of the competition, which will take place on March 12th, 2022 in London during the LSE Polish Economic Forum. Each of the finalists will pitch their idea to potential investors and conference participants. Then in the „Dragon’s Den” formula will be evaluated by the Jury.

Hundreds of Forum participants will be able to watch the finals of the competition live, and the entire event will also be broadcasted on social media.

History of ł.pitch

As a pioneer of the oil industry and the inventor of the kerosene lamp, Ignacy Łukasiewicz significantly contributed to the development of entrepreneurship in Poland. He was also an important social activist. His figure has inspired us to name our competition ł.pitch in order to show that its mission is to promote entrepreneurship in Poland and abroad.

The two previous editions received vast support from the investors and aroused tremendous interest among start-ups, with over 100 applications. During all editions, the chosen finalists presented their ideas at the LSE Polish Economic Forum (PEF) in front of investors and other professionals.

Then, the jury, which included such renowned industry leaders as Sebastian Kulczyk, Krzysztof Krawczyk, Tytus Cytowski, Marcin Kowalik, Wojciech Szaniawski, Karol Górnowicz and Jan Habermann, questioned and assessed the finalists’ ideas in a Dragons’ Den formula, and awarded prizes. The competition attracted extensive publicity, with numerous articles covering the initiative and its winners appearing in leading media outlets such as Forbes and Business Insider.

Contact:
Start-up challenge
startupchallenge@polish-business.org
Julianna Klęk – Head of ł.pitch
j.klek@polish-business.org

Terms and Conditions
3W Special Prize Terms and Conditions-2022