SMOK Ventures

SMOK Ventures is a Polish-American early-stage venture capital firm founded in May 2019 by Borys Musielak, Diana Koziarska, and San Francisco-based investor Paul Bragiel, with offices in Warsaw and Silicon Valley. The firm bridges Central and Eastern European founders with Western capital markets, writing $100,000 to $1 million cheques into pre-seed and seed rounds of CEE founders and the global CEE diaspora -- with particular concentration on Polish entrepreneurs incorporating in the US. Core investment themes include developer tools, AI, gaming, AR/VR, marketing technology, and fintech. SMOK leads rounds across its portfolio. The firm has raised approximately $35 million across two vehicles: Fund I, a Euro 9 million fund deployed into 24 startups between 2020 and 2022, and Fund II, a $25 million fund closed in January 2024 backed by more than 60 private LPs including Andrew Sieja, founder of Relativity, via OnDean Forward. Fund II plans to back up to 35 companies. As of mid-2025 SMOK holds 47 portfolio companies -- 23 headquartered in Poland, 17 as Delaware C-Corps, and 5 elsewhere in CEE. A structural strength is follow-on activity: approximately 80% of subsequent rounds for SMOK portfolio companies come from Western Europe, Silicon Valley, or Asia. Named portfolio companies include Alokai (Vue Storefront), Authologic, inStreamly, Masthead Data, Slickshift, HiPets, SmartHotel, Finmap, and 57hours. SMOK's cross-border thesis is grounded in the observation that CEE has produced world-class engineering talent while remaining under-invested by institutional capital. The firm's dual-geography presence gives portfolio founders credibility in Silicon Valley fundraising conversations while leveraging the founders' home-market operational advantages.