After the success of its first two startup accelerators, Polish company Reaktor X will kick off its third batch, with the deadline to apply coming up on March 7.
In 10 weeks, the program takes startups from the earliest stages of idea and product development all the way to first funding. In the first two batches, 150 startups applied, while 22 were selected. 16 are still operational, while 6 have raised seed funding.
The program is designed for industry experts looking to start their first company, ambitious students with an entrepreneurial mindset, or for anyone with an idea and a strong will to turn that idea into reality.
Once accepted, the ambitious applicants will have a chance to network at various events and hone their skills with mentors and industry experts who will be assigned to each startup. There will also be a demo night during the last week, called Reaktor X Demo Night, with a contest to see who has the best pitch in front of hundreds of journalists, investors, and fellow founders.
This is a great opportunity for both startups having trouble finding investors, as well as investors having trouble finding interesting startups.
The Polish startup scene exploding onto the European stage, and Reactor X aims to put the eastern European country on the map for good. Krakow and Warsaw are the two places things are really getting going, but the compact size of Krakow seems to be especially conducive to startup success.
Piotr Wilam, the owner of Onet.pl, Poland’s version of Yahoo!.com, had this to say to startupxplore.com: “What’s happening in Krakow is that this community went from the initial stage of saying, ‘let’s do something’, to the second stage, where there are several companies doing well. I’m looking forward to it getting to the next stage, in which Krakow becomes a place to build a company. I hope that at this next stage there will be professionals in each area that are available, that are on the market and are looking for companies to join.”
There are a number of VCs and business angels in Krakow, and they have turned their sights on startups looking to branch out of Poland and onto the international scene.
Krakow has turned into an “outpost of Silicon Valley,” Wilam added. “There have been a few dozen people who have had the opportunity to experience and learn from this culture in Silicon Valley, and they are bringing it over here. This is a really important change in the way of how business is done.”
And while he admits that Krakow is not the powerhouse that London or San Francisco is, the future for this little Silicon Valley outpost in Eastern Europe seems very bright – especially with the likes of Reactor X on the scene.
