SMOK Ventures

Bridging Silicon Valley to CEE. Founded by @bragiel @michuk @dianakoziarska. Investing €50k-1M in devools, gamedev & AI startups in Poland, Ukraine & CEE

[SMOK Ventures @smokvc]

🇵🇱 Poland’s SMOK (that's us!) closes $25m second fund.

We want to invest in 25-35 early-stage SaaS, AI and gaming startups from across Central/Eastern Europe and the region’s diaspora abroad with cheques of $100k-1m.

https://t.co/p8X6L9j7ep

[SMOK Ventures @smokvc]

Announcing our 2nd Bulgarian 🇧🇬 deal, Paypercut, a fintech by ex SumUp, Rippling, and Payhawk VPs.

Paypercut is building the payment infrastructure for online merchants across Central and Eastern Europe on stablecoin, challenging Stripe in the region.

https://t.co/wv4q9ZAbgS

[SMOK Ventures @smokvc]

@michuk It's CENTRAL & Eastern Europe!

[Borys Musielak @ Warsaw @michuk]

I’ve published 700+ posts on X over the last five years. Scattered through them is the same advice I keep repeating in DMs and 1:1s with founders.

I went back, pulled the 50 highest-engagement posts that contain actionable guidance focused specifically on Eastern European founders,

Bookmark it. Send it to your co-founder.

The Ultimate CEE Founder FAQ:
https://t.co/coMpnlKgTx

If your question isn’t here, ask by commenting on this post and I'll answer.

[Sebastian Szczygiel @sebastian_szc]

Looking good: Primio April numbers in.

- ARR: $282K
- Mo1 NRR: 217% (vs 147% in March)
- Mo1 retention: 85% (vs 74% in March)

Lots of tourists. The ones who stay upgrade fast, often same day.

Support tickets mostly store submission related, not the agent quality anymore.

[Diana Koziarska @dianakoziarska]

As a VC I back human creativity. Usually via term sheets, but last night it was at an art auction.
Thrilled to own a piece by Ukrainian artist Hanna Pushkarova. Her "Dancers" show resilience as inspiring as any founder’s pitch. Supporting talent on all fronts #HumanCreativity

[Sebastian Szczygiel @sebastian_szc]

"What are people building on Primio?"
We sampled 300 projects from the last six weeks.
Not what you'd expect. No to-do apps. No calculators.
A parish management system. An FX signals dashboard. A vocal stem isolator. A rental property app in Spanish. A Greek restaurant ordering app.
CRMs, dating apps, fintech dashboards, fitness trackers, games.
When the cost of building drops to near-zero, people build what they actually need.

[Borys Musielak @ Warsaw @michuk]

“I’m a smart student interested in venture capital. I’d love an internship at your firm.”

I get these emails all the time. I rarely reply to those nowadays.

If you’re one of the ghosted students, this article is for you.

https://t.co/40Hl1sFLQV

[jareks @JarekSyg]

Age verification and proof of human can (and will) be done using the same open standards.
The key here is privacy preservation & zero knowledge proofs so no ID or biometrics is sent to anyone.

I'm not sure I've seen @vonderleyen being in agreement with @pmarca before.

Tomorrow we are showing how this will work so stay tuned.

[Borys Musielak @ Warsaw @michuk]

When your portfolio company organizes a summit I guess something has worked out.

Good job @authologic!

#smokportfolio

[Cris Lenta @crislenta]

I built the first emergent AI simulator — 1 Million player interactions:

600,000+ conversations,
13.4 hours straight peak play time.

I distilled the lessons from this unique dataset — and wrote about what's on the horizon of this technology

LifeSim: Real-time Simulation of Artificial Life

[SMOK Ventures @smokvc]

Disinformation campaigns 📢 are getting more sophisticated—but also more fragile.

Proud to see LETSDATA 🇺🇦 uncover a campaign that ultimately backfired on its creators, demonstrating the “boomerang effect” 🪃 in action.

Excited to back the team!

https://t.co/VOngBpsjin

[SMOK Ventures @smokvc]

Our partner @michuk is warning founders not to take money from unverified investors.

"Always due diligence your potential investors just like they due diligence founders".

Watch the whole https://t.co/b1wuOg3x6Z interview (in Polish):
https://t.co/hKA4EB0Z79

#venturecapital

[SMOK Ventures @smokvc]

Thank you @forbes_ukr 🇺🇦 for covering our investment in Principle!

https://t.co/RFEj2uSgeN

[SMOK Ventures @smokvc]

Principle wins the KPMG Enterprise Innovation award at @sxsw - congrats to our portfolio founders Artur Kiulian & Anton Polishko, PhD.

Principle 🇺🇦 is bringing Pentagon-style wargaming to the corporate boardroom.

Source:
https://t.co/bvoo3CeeAe

#smokportfolio #ceevalley

[Cris Lenta @crislenta]

Many investors fuck around and waste your time.

Mine: quick decision, wire the money, let me cook.

Shoutout to @fdotinc & @smokvc: @michuk @hthieblot @tomasz_k97 @FurqanR @ruslanjabari @bragiel @adriannalakatos @mdjshin @stavan & the entire team

[Imaguru Global @imaguru_global]

Want to scale globally & secure smart investment?🌍
Join Diana Koziarska, Founding Partner at SMOK Ventures, on Mar 26 for a Fireside Chat at WITW.
Learn how investing with care can help women-led & early-stage startups thrive.
👉 Join: https://t.co/uxrTlreIvT
#WITW# #VC#Startup

[SMOK Ventures @smokvc]

"When ChatGPT launched, I didn't see a chatbot; I saw the missing piece for building worlds where everything's alive and every behavior emergent to the player" says our portfolio founder @crislenta who's building the Sims for AI.

https://t.co/YUmTYLsuBn

#gdc #gamedev

[Diana Koziarska @dianakoziarska]

@sifted @smokvc The competition for tier-one founders in Poland is reaching a fever pitch.
It’s a privilege to be in the trenches with these visionaries from Day 0. The #CEEvalley momentum is just getting started. 🚀
Check out the full @Sifted list here: https://t.co/JIYzQcqKBo

[SMOK Ventures @smokvc]

Great to see three of our portfolio companies intoDNA 🧪 @Authologic 🛡️ & Juo 💵 named by top VCs as the Polish 🇵🇱 startups to watch in 2026!

Our own @dianakoziarska named our top anti-portfolio companies AI Clearing & VitVio.

Congrats to all founders!

https://t.co/WJSUrpdNAW

[SMOK Angels CEE @smok_angels]

We're invested in 17 startups across CEE since launching the network in July 2025.

Namely: Lysk, @BioCamAI, @IntoDNA, Proximity, Skyline, Petsy, Proteine Resources, @TasteRay, @ShenAI_tech, Kocia Szamka, @inStreamly, SmartGuest, Fusiomica, Aleet, Pupilmed, Fresh32 & @Reason8ai