START Warsaw

We're excited to announce that Start Warsaw is now an official partner of AlienBazaar hardware hackathon!

Sept 25–27 in Warsaw, 20 engineering teams from across Europe will come together to connect 20 hardware devices into one interconnected robot ecosystem — building the future of EU robotics, live.

This isn't a single-device demo. It's a live convergence of everything robotics has to offer, under one roof: industrial robot arms, a wide range of robotic manipulators, robot dogs, hexapods, humanoids, drones, underwater drones, and AR - all connected into one interoperable system.

20 teams. 20 devices. One weekend. One interconnected ecosystem.

Proud to support this mission. Join the movement.
Registration closes September 15 👉 alienbazaar.com

🚀 Join us on September 4th for Codex Build: Future of Knowledge Work in Warsaw - supported by START Warsaw.

100 chosen founders, engineers, and operators will spend an afternoon doing real, hands-on building. After a short welcome and a live Codex demo, most of the time will simply be about building.

Pick one track:
🔹 Reinvent Go-To-Market — new ways to scale revenue
🔹 Reinvent Internal Work — an agentic co-worker for research, ops, or collaboration
🔹 Reinvent the Customer Journey — faster, smarter, more personal interactions
Work solo or in a small team. Bring a workflow you actually want fixed, build a working prototype with Codex, and demo it to the room by the end of the day.

📍 Just Join IT, Warsaw
🗓️ September 4, 2026 — doors at 14:30, program 15:00–18:00 CEST
👥 Capacity: 100 — registration is selective, spots are limited

Great fit for founders, technical builders, operators, and strong student builders ready to tackle a real challenge. Bring your laptop and one workflow worth improving.

Link to register in the comments 👇

And… that’s a wrap. 🚀

What started as an idea a few months ago turned into a room full of 78 people building.

And not just any people. They were all selected from a pool of almost 300 applications.

For several hours, teams worked on real challenges with support from mentors, founders, and partners. Some met for the first time that morning. By the evening, they were pitching products they’d built together.

That’s pretty cool.

Huge thanks to everyone who spent their Saturday with us. To every participant who shipped instead of overthinking. To our mentors and judges for pushing teams in the right direction. And to openai solidgate_tech, boski.ai, and all of our partners for making this possible.

This was the biggest event we’ve organized so far, and seeing the room full from start to finish made all the late nights worth it.

Warsaw has no shortage of people who want to build.

And it’s only the beginning.

Due to technical issues, we were required to change OpenAI x START Warsaw Hackathon location to Solidgate’s Office.

See you there!

OpenAI x START Warsaw Hackathon is happening. 🚀

100+ builders.
Real business problems.
7 hours to build something that actually works.

This will be the second OpenAI hackathon ever held in Poland.

You’ll work in teams of 3–4 on challenges prepared with our case partners, using OpenAI tools and support from mentors on-site throughout the day.

No need to come with a finished team. You can apply solo and we’ll match you with other builders.

What to expect:
⚡ real cases, not made-up exercises
🧠 mentors and builders from the Polish AI scene
💻 OpenAI Codex credits for participants
🏆 prizes for the winning teams
🤝 networking after the final pitches

Bring your laptop and be ready to build.

📍 SKELAR, Warsaw
🗓 Applications close Friday EOD
🎟 Apply here: https://luma.com/2awu6fuu

We're speaking at Venture Café Warsaw Thursday Gathering tomorrow!

The topic: what student startup programs in Poland get wrong - and what START Warsaw is trying to do differently.

Most programs follow the same playbook: ideation workshops, learning how to pitch, Demo Day. And then... nothing gets built.

We ran START Sprint - a 3-week intensive event where our members had to build and validate a real product from scratch.

We'll share what got built, what broke, and what it revealed about what young founders in Poland actually need.

If you're an investor, mentor, university program lead, or just someone who cares about what the next generation of Polish startups looks like - come join the conversation.

📌 Cambridge Innovation Center, Chmielna 73
📅 25.06 | 20:00

🔗 Details in the link in the comments.

Tomorrow, they take the stage.

After 3 weeks of building, testing, and preparing, our START Sprint teams are ready to present what they’ve created.

5 student teams.
21 days.
Idea to MVP.

At START Sprint Demo Day, they’ll pitch live in front of founders, investors, operators, and the Warsaw startup ecosystem.

Come see what ambitious student builders can create when they move fast and build for real.

📍 Rotunda PKO BP
📆 Tomorrow
🎟 Register here:
https://luma.com/na2nxob0

The way startups are built has changed.

AI tools, faster prototyping, smaller teams, new distribution channels, and higher expectations from users have completely shifted what it takes to go from idea to product.

That’s why during START Sprint Demo Day, we’re hosting a panel on:

The New Rules of Building
How the Game Changed and What It Takes Now

Joining us:

Paweł Tomczuk
Founder & CEO at TechTree

Phi Long Bui
Founder at Swayze

Together, we’ll talk about what building looks like today, what founders need to understand early, and how young builders can use the current moment to move faster.

Join us at Demo Day:
https://luma.com/na2nxob0

Big thank you to WSB Merito Centrum Innowacji for supporting START Sprint and hosting our Builder Hours.

Thanks to your space, our teams had a place to meet, build, get feedback, and move their ideas forward during the sprint.

We really appreciate partners who help student entrepreneurship happen in practice, not just in theory.

Grateful to have you with us 🤝

START Warsaw at Inovo VC

On Monday our STARTies had the opportunity to visit Inovo VC - one of the leading venture capital funds in Warsaw

We talked about:
• how VCs evaluate startups
• what early-stage founders usually get wrong
• how fundraising actually looks behind the scenes
• and what it takes to build companies investors truly believe in

For many of our members, it was also a chance to ask honest questions, better understand the startup ecosystem, and meet people actively shaping it.

(and... we also checked out beautiful views from their terrace)

Big thanks to the Inovo team for having us 🤝