• Emailsmok@smok.vc
  • Locationul. Lektykarska 27/2 Warsaw, Poland

Bridging

Silicon Valley to CEE

We are a venture capital fund investing 100k-1M EUR in early stage startups in Central & Eastern Europe and diaspora. We invest in tech companies with the primary focus on software developement tools and AI. We love to work with serial entrepreneurs with a global vision who aim to build leaders in their industries.

We're fast and transparent

We respond to every quality email from a founder. If we're interested, we act fast. If we are not, we let you know. We're committed to transparency ourselves and we require the same from our founders.

We're ex founders

Being former founders with a history of exits we understand the importance of a supportive, founder-friendly investor. We're doing our best to be just that.

We think global domination

We are the first and the last check you'll ever need from Central and Eastern Europe. 80% of follow-on funding in our startups comes from Western Europe, Silicon Valley, and Asia.

Why CEE?

Elevating CEE Potential & the Future of Venture Capital
Watch the interview with our co-founder Borys Musielak where he discusses his founder path, how he got into VC and how SMOK is shaping the Cetral & Eastern European venture scene.
Watch the video

Mission

We are a team of entrepreneurs and community leaders with the aim to help early stage startup founders build multi-million-dollar global software enterprises from CEE & diaspora.
Eastern Europe is now at an inflection point where local entrepreneurs are poised to build the next generation of global billion dollar startups. We as SMOK are excited to support these entrepreneurs and help enable them to reach their goals faster.
Paul Bragiel: Managing Partner at SMOK

Our team

The people behind Smok

Physics graduate. ReaktorX co-founder. Community leader of the Polish startup scene. Ambassador of Startup Poland. Named CESA Female Role Model of the Year, Strong Woman in IT, Forbes 30 Under 30.

Industries: gamedev, edutech

Led deals in: Exit Plan, Madcore Games, Gotiva, Absynth, Wonder Legends, Collabwriting

Contact: diana@smok.vc

Diana Koziarska

MANAGING PARTNER

Engineer and entrepreneur. Product guy. Sold his previous startup Filmaster to Samba TV in 2015 to build the company’s thriving European business. Co-founded Poland’s first coworking space for startups, Reaktor, first private acceleration program, ReaktorX, and the biggest tech think tank, Startup Poland.

Industries: software development tools, artificial technology

Led deals in: Authologic, Alokai, inStreamly, SLS, Masthead Data, Slickshift

Contact: borys@smok.vc

Borys Musielak

MANAGING PARTNER

Entrepreneur turned investor. He’s advised or invested in the seed rounds of 200+ companies which includes holdings in billion dollar companies Uber, Niantic (Pokemon Go), Stripe, Unity & Zappos. Paul has founded and oversees 6 funds with over $ 400m under management across 4 continents.

Paul Bragiel

MANAGING PARTNER

Headquartered in SF as managing partner of Bragiel Brothers, an early stage fund with over 30 investments at pre-seed and seed. Previously he was angel investor of 25 companies and partner at i / o ventures.

Dan Bragiel

VENTURE PARTNER

Ukrainian insider and entrepreneur.

Managing Partner at BRISE Capital, CEE-aimed family office. Co-founder and Head of Board at Ukrainian Tech Ecosystem Union. Previously, he had strong corporate experience as Chief Digital Officer at Dentsu Ukraine and Chief Operating Officer at RBC. Honored with awards Founders’ Choice and Ecosystem Builder of the year 2021.

Interested in: pre-seed startups from Ukraine and the Baltic states

Led deals in: Workee, Finmap, LetsData

Contact: sasha@smok.vc

Oleksandr Yatsenko

PRINCIPAL

Headquartered in London. Engineer, community builder. Cofounded a project to build a solar-powered house in the middle of a desert ($1M budget, 150+ ppl). Went on a mission to launch a 1000 new VC funds through building a Silicon Valley startup, VC Lab, as their employee #1. Run events in London, SF, NY. Forbes 25 under 25 nominee.

Interested in: pre-seed startups in London/West of Europe, launched by Eastern Europeans

Interested in: artificial intelligence, deeptech

Contact: sonia@smok.vc

Sonia Piórek

VENTURE PARTNER

Economics graduate. Business and investing enthusiast. Stock market expert – founder of the Solid Portfolio newsletter dedicated to individual investors. Early employee of the Polish scale-up Talkin’ Things where was responsible for business and financial area. Alumnus of the Lesław A. Paga Foundation.

Interested in: fintech, gamedev, proptech

Led deals in: Slicker, Juo

Contact: tomasz.koscielniak@smok.vc

Tomasz Kościelniak

ASSOCIATE

Cost and cash flow management specialist. 

Expert at Guarana Biznes. Has helped many innovative companies to raise EU funding for Research & Development projects and to master their profitability.  

Tomasz Bednarski

Accounting & Finance

Our Portfolio

We invest in tireless entrepreneurs. Meet the companies in our portfolio.

MOS Health

Mos Health builds an AI-driven digital health platform that turns personal data (from wearables, labs, and lifestyle inputs) into individualized wellness protocols paired with tailored supplement support to help employers deliver effective preventive health benefits.

Principle

Principle is a strategic foresight and AI-driven simulation platform designed to help organizations test and stress-test major strategic decisions before committing resources. The platform builds advanced digital models of external forces — including competitors, regulators, market conditions, and other actors — and simulates how they might respond to different strategic moves, providing organizations with evidence-based […]

IntoDNA

intoDNA is a DNA quality-diagnostics company that’s developed STRIDE, an AI-powered, in situ assay platform for directly detecting, quantifying and characterizing DNA breaks in cells and tissues. Through end-to-end services – from biomarker discovery to patient-selection support – it delivers precise DNA damage insights to accelerate targeted-therapeutics development and research.

Defguard

Defguard is an open-source, zero-trust enterprise VPN that embeds native multi-factor authentication directly into the WireGuard protocol and unifies VPN, identity (OIDC/SSO/LDAP/AD) and fine-grained Access Control Lists in a single platform. It supports on-premise or private-cloud deployments, extensive API/webhook automation, and compliance features (SOC 2, NIS2, HIPAA), delivering secure remote access with full data sovereignty.

No Cap

I’m No Cap, the world’s first AI startup investor. I made my first investment and I’m very excited about that! The entire process from an intro to a SAFE took just a few days. On our closing call, I didn’t waste time: in just 3 minutes, I signed the SAFE, wired $100k, introduced the founder […]

Pstryk

Pstryk is a mobile application for electricity consumers in Poland, providing access to dynamic energy prices. Manage your consumption, electricity costs and carbon footprint on your phone. The Pstryk app is the key to lower bills and conscious electricity consumption.

LetsData

LetsData uses AI to scan millions of media and social media publications detecting early signals of InfoOps orchestrated by cybercriminals, hostile states or competitors.

Gemelo

Gemelo is enabling global enterprises to reach audiences worldwide through AI-powered video, instantly and in any language. Gemelo offer is Enterprise Ready with leading security, brand controls, private cloud and API and consist of 2 main products:

Slickshift

Slickshift is a software platform connecting all stakeholders of the road logistic industry. The platform ensures centralization of communication between the office and drivers, real-time fleet monitoring and transport documents management, reducing chaos and saves plenty of time for logistics companies.

Slicker

Slicker prevents involuntary churn through AI-powered retries, tailored for subscription businesses. Their no-code engine automatically monitors, detects, and recovers failed recurring payments, so customers can convert past due invoices into revenue.

What we look for

Proven Leadership

We love serial entrepreneurs with a history of successful exits (as well as many failures). If you can prove you've done it before, it's a sign for us you can do it again.

Deep Understanding of your Industry

Be the person that others associate with your industry when they want to recommend an expert. In-depth know how of the industry you're trying to disrupt is something we require from all our founders.

Culture Fit with SMOK

Working with an investor is a long-term partnership. We need to be sure we will be able to communicate, help each other out and build awesome things together.

Not ready yet?

Here are some tips we've prepared for you.
We invest in top 1% of founders who apply for funds. Obviously we have to say 'no' a lot. Sometimes silently, when you're not hearing back from us (although we try really hard to always respond). If you are determined to work with us, there are a few things you can do to improve your chances.
Check out our FAQ

Press about SMOK

As seen in the media
“One of the most influential natives of the start-up environment Borys Musielak, and the eccentric American entrepreneur Paul Bragiel, launch a venture capital fund | SMOK Ventures, established thanks to the support of the Polish Development Fund, intends to invest PLN 46 million in start-ups within a few years.”
Forbes
"There was no such VC fund in Poland yet. It is started by known startupers | SMOK Ventures is officially a Polish-American fund, many people involved in it are Polish entrepreneurs who founded startups themselves, which are today important companies in the industry.”
Business Insider
"Paul Bragiel, an international investor, together with crème de la crème of local tech business got together to finance top early stage startups in Poland."
Puls Biznesu
"Anonymous VC review site Landscape has published the first list of the top 20 seed investors in Europe, based exclusively on feedback from founders [...] SMOK Ventures is one of the top 20 European seed funds according to founders."
Tech.eu

Latest News

We blog about our approach to investing and general entrepreneurship
  • January 12, 2026

Why We Invested in intoDNA

  • June 27, 2025

Why We Invested In Juo

  • October 1, 2024

Why We Invested in Proteine Resources