Studies at SGH will provide you with new opportunities to gain experience and develop your own business. Learn about the most important advantages of studying at SGH and in the capital of Poland – Warsaw.
Why start-ups choose Poland?
Poland lies in the very centre of Europe. It offers a large (about 38 million of potential customers) and stable domestic market as well as central location at the intersection of the most important trade routes, making Poland the leader in terms of investment attractiveness in Central and Eastern Europe (EY report, Europe Attractiveness Survey 2019). The same could be said about start-ups. The contribution factors of the start-up ecosystem include numerous support institutions and access to resources enabling the creation of innovative projects. Poland has one of the best-developed start-up ecosystems in Europe, outranking other countries of the region in regard to available funding, institutional support and broadly perceived opportunities for development of innovative enterprises.
Over a third of Polish start-ups decide to start their operations in Warsaw. With more than a hundred coworking spaces scattered around the city, it is much easier to find your place here.
Most of them, like CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) located in Varso Tower – the tallest building in the European Union, the space serves merely as an addition to the environment filled with innovators and entrepreneurs.
Examples of coworking spaces in Warsaw:
Start-up in Warsaw
Warsaw is the main economic, political and cultural centre of Poland. The capital city is valued for its openness towards business and a strong environment of innovators. Warsaw was named the city of the future by The Financial Times and was ranked ahead of Berlin, Madrid and Moscow. Out of the many start-ups created in Poland, one-third of such enterprises are set up in Warsaw. Qualified specialists, the city’s pro-innovative attitude and funds allocated to support local entrepreneurs make Warsaw an important place on the European start-up map.
Warsaw is a financial centre, where decisions concerning the entire region are made. The city is the base of operations of the largest Venture Capital funds investing in promising start-ups.
In 2020, VC investments in Poland amounted to over 1.5 billon PLN,4 setting a new record in the amount of capital raised by start-ups.
Examples of VC funds investing and operating in Warsaw:
Get started with SGH Warsaw School of Economics
SGH Warsaw School of Economics offers many activities supporting entrepreneurship. One of the university’s units is the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer responsible for supporting the development of innovative entrepreneurship at SGH. The first stage of the Centre’s support involves entrepreneurial consultations during which SGH specialists help the students to develop the business model and defining the areas of the university’s support for the business idea in question. Start-up projects can communicate a platform called Start-up HUB, designed especially for that purpose, and in the meetings held by SGH Business Club. The university also organizes workshops imparting practical knowledge in the field of conducting business and competitions for enterprising students and employees (for instance, Canvas Business Challenge – involving the development of business models based on the Business Model Canvas template). SGH also cooperates with other organisations supporting entrepreneurship in order to make it easier for the start-ups created at the university to access knowledge, resources and the market.
Support at every stage of development of a start-up project is provided by acceleration programs and incubators. In Warsaw, there are municipal Creativity Centers Smolna / Targowa / Nowa Praga. There are also many other programs aimed at start-up projects and their creators.
Examples of start-up incubators and accelerators based in Warsaw: