The Polish Scale Up competition drew to a close. 10 companies were granted 60 mln zł (about 13 mln euro) in total for their startup acceleration programs. Each of these accelerators will support at least 20 startups during the upcoming 15 months.

Scale Up is the first competition in the Start In Poland program, organized by PARP – Polska Agencja Rozwoju Przedsiębiorczości (Polish Agency for Enterprise Development). The objective of this competition is to share the infrastructure, experience and resources of large corporations with startups.

The first stage of this program is the selection of companies specializing in startups acceleration. Together with large enterprises, research units and seed or venture capital funds, these companies will begin a pilotage program for at least 20 startups each. Startups will receive not only a financial support (up to 250 000 zł), but also an access to resources needed for prototyping and testing, as well as the assistance of experienced mentors. They also have the opportunity to start a business partnership with large corporations.

PARP plans to sign contracts with the chosen accelerators in December so they can begin cooperating with startups this year already.

The initial budget of Scale Up was 35 mln zł. As the amount and quality of submitted accelerators exceeded the expectations of PARP, the organizers decided to increase it to 60 mln zł. “Financing ten acceleration programs instead of six, as we initially planned, will allow us for establishing a target model of most effective startup acceleration mechanisms,” said Patrycja Klarecka, the president of PARP.

10 startup acceleration programs chosen in Scale Up are:

1. IMPACT_Poland – a program proposed by FundingBox Accelerator. This accelerator will be cooperating with two large companies from agriculture and health sectors.
2. Space3ac Intermodal Transportation – a program organized by Pomorska Specjalna Strefa Ekonomiczna. Their main area of focus is the application of satellite-based services in intermodal transport.
3. GammaRebels – a program from HardGamma Ventures, organized together with Poczta Polska. This accelerator focuses on creating business cases for startups’ products.
4. MIT Enterprise Forum Poland (MITEF Poland) – this program, proposed by Fundacja Przedsiębiorczości Technologicznej, is realized for startups specializing in energy, health, resources and fin-tech sectors.
5. Huge Thing.vc – this accelerator from Huge Thing, organized in cooperation with Alior Bank, targets mostly fin-tech startups.
6. Startup SPARK – a program organized by Łódzka Specjalna Strefa Ekonomiczna. Mentors will become startup employees for the time of the acceleration program.
7. ScaleUp KPT – a program from Krakowski Park Technologiczny that uses the Living Lab method, involving target users in the product design process.
8. Pilot Maker – this accelerator organized by techBrainers will focus mainly on cooperation with large enterprises.
9. INDUSTRYLAB – an accelerator of industrial innovations by DGA that applies the scrum development method.
10. IDEA Global – a program proposed by Ideo, a company specializing in web projects. This accelerator has a large web of partners, including enterprises, universities and investment funds.