The financial technology sector in Poland alone is estimated to be worth roughly €856 million, making it the largest concentration in Central and Eastern Europe, and is thus seen as a country on the rise.
A recent survey from GE found that many executives increasingly view Poland as a centre for innovation. Poland saw a 15% improvement in responders’ positive perceptions about how the country fosters growth.
In this environment, Poland’s tech scene is thriving. As global demand for better SaaS tools grows, the Poland-based companies listed below have focused on providing category-leading services that cover the gamut of business needs, from CRM to social media and brand management.
Check out these nine Poland-based SaaS companies primed for major growth in 2020.
1. ClickMeeting
A growing demand for video and interactive marketing strategies has catalysed the expansion of the webinar sector, with 664,000 more people attending webinars in 2018 than in 2017 – and few have capitalised on this trend as successfully as Gdansk-based ClickMeeting.
Other companies in the sector have been content to build a video streaming platform and rest on their figurative laurels, but ClickMeeting has shown a constant dedication to improvement and upgrades.
The company recently added a host of personalisation and automation capabilities; the ability to live-stream through Facebook and YouTube Live to help brands expand their possible audience and offer greater flexibility; on-demand webinars that offer a longer tail for webinars’ effectiveness; and paid webinars which help deliver greater market segmentation by allowing companies to use free webinars for top of funnel activities, while using paid ones for customers who are closer to sales and post-sale.
2. Growbots
With faster access to data than ever before, marketing decisions require speed that most manual systems can’t provide. Indeed, 94% of top-performing marketers see marketing automation as “very important” to the overall performance of marketing, according to one recent study from Ascend2. Instead of resource-heavy human-driven strategies, Growbots allows for easy targeting, campaign setup, and automation of tasks like prospecting and outreach email optimisation.
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Moreover, it can track positive responses and adapt to improve lead generation. The company, which recently rebooted their services to supply improved tools for outbound sales, has been scaling up rapidly over the past few years.
Growbots experienced massive growth between 2016 and 2017, expanding revenues by a jaw-dropping 1200%. In May 2017, the company reported an impressive $4 million in annual recurring revenues and reached the milestone of 500 active customers. Since then, outside Poland, Growbot has opened new US branch offices in Cleveland and is poised to continue its explosive growth well into 2020.
3. TenderHut
The IT powerhouse TenderHut has been recognised as not only the fastest growing company in Poland, but as the fastest growing IT services company in all of Europe the previous two years. The company specialises in acquiring startups from the region and using their proprietary resources to develop startups into full fledged profitable businesses.
They dabble into fields such as SaaS development, cyber security, commercial IoT, laboratory solutions amongst other things. One example of an acquisition, the Zonifero office space management suite, was recently nominated as the best IoT startup of 2019 by the Central European Startup Awards. Some of their collaborators include top brands such as Microsoft, PwC and Thermo Fisher Scientific.
TenderHut boasts remote offices in nine different countries, with the most recent addition being Guangzhou, China, their first endeavour into the Asian market. From a financial perspective, the company saw a tremendous increase in revenue from around $4 million in 2017, to more than $6 million in 2018.
4. PerfOps
Today’s companies rely heavily on the uptime of their IT infrastructures to do business. One recent Ponemon study estimated that downtime can cost organisations $9,000 per minute on average.
Krakow-based PerfOps offers a variety of networking products that help companies ensure that their infrastructures are always available. Among its key products is FlexBalancer, which is a smart cloud-based load-balancing and failover service that allows companies to optimally route their internet traffic to gain better performance and uptime. In addition, PerfOps also offers analytics and continuous monitoring capabilities to help IT teams stay on top of their networks’ health.
The company has more than 3,000 satisfied customers. It has raised $500,000 in funding, mainly from venture capital funds Finch Capital and Sunfish Partners.
5. Estimote
The Internet-of-Things is changing the retail industry. Wireless sensors and beacons are finding their way into physical brick-and-mortar stores. These devices enable businesses to provide new omni-channel experiences to their customers. By 2023, the global omni-channel retail commerce platform market is expected to be worth $11.01 billion US.
Estimote creates wireless beacons equipped with Bluetooth low energy (BLE) that acts as a proximity sensor and is able to interact with nearby smartphones. It also provides a software development kit (SDK) and an application programming interface (API) that allow SaaS developers to build custom applications that interact with the beacons.
This creates more opportunities for retailers to engage their customers. Through these beacons, they will be able to send personalised content and notifications directly to customers within the proximity. The beacons can also set to trigger digital signage and interactive displays. They will also be able to accurately track customer movement within their stores, allowing them to reconfigure the space for more optimal layouts.
The Krakow company has raised $26.9 million in funding since its founding in 2012 and maintains offices office in New York and the Bay Area.
6. SALESmanago
Digital channels are now emerging to be the ideal channels through which companies can reach their markets. According to eMarketer, US digital ad spending is set to surpass traditional ad spending this year and will account for more than two-thirds of total media spending by 2023. Because of this, marketers have to upgrade their toolsets to cope with the shift.
One such platform they can use is SALESmanago. The company provides a comprehensive marketing suite that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate various marketing tasks. It can automatically gather users’ behavioural data and build customer profiles that can help marketers create personalized campaigns for maximum engagement. The platform can reach out to customers via email, SMS, mobile notifications, and social media.
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SALESmanago is headquartered in Krakow but has offices all over the globe including the US, the UK, Mexico, and India. Its platform is used by over 10,000 businesses in over 40 countries, including top brands like Starbucks, New Balance, and BMW. It has raised $7.7 million in three funding rounds from investors including 3TS Capital. In May, Martech Advisor reported that SALESmanago was on pace to hit €15.6 million in 2019 revenues.
7. InStream
InStream’s CRM platform combines a variety of online communication channels into a single, easy-to-use platform. It’s quickly emerging as a go-to choice for small and medium-sized businesses that are seeking to build relationships with consumers and delivers a variety of tools that streamline the process.
While there are many CRM tools on the market, what separates InStream from the pack is the platform’s emphasis on building long-term relationships with customers instead of simply converting leads into one-and-done sales. More companies are focusing on late-stage and post-sales nurturing as a key part of their marketing, and one-time sales have significantly less value in this paradigm.
Additionally, Poznań-headquartered InStream helps you personalize your data structures by using lists or grids to organise information based on your needs and priorities. This makes it easy to track every customer interaction and measure their interest. This is a task most CRMs struggle with, but InStream prioritises. In September, Forbes Poland estimated that InStream Group, the company’s new managed services division, was on pace to drive over $1 million in sales this year on behalf of its clients.
8. CallPage
A major issue marketers face when generating leads through their websites is the speed at which they can respond to interested visitors. Even for the most astute and on-the-ball observers, a missed visit or a delayed call can result in a dropped lead. CallPage recognises the issue, and not only automates the process of callbacks and responses but prioritises speed of response.
The company’s surprisingly easy solution is a small pop-up, displayed when its algorithm determines a site visitor is ready to speak with sales, offering a callback in less than 30 seconds. This may not seem like much, but the company has found that it can improve website lead conversion rates, as well as qualified sales calls, by up to 75%.
Furthermore, users also have flexibility in terms of choosing when they get a call back or can choose to simply receive a reminder message. With a guaranteed call back, customers feel more appreciated and exhibit a higher likelihood of interacting with the company in the future. CallPage closed a $4.5 million Series A funding round last summer and is poised for a breakout growth year in 2020.
9. Synerise
With the quickly emerging importance of AI for businesses, there is a real need for a platform offers the technology’s services while adding real value. Gartner recently estimated that continued development and adoption of AI-powered tech will yield $2.9 trillion in annual business value by 2021.
Krakow’s Synerise uses a variety of machine-learning, AI-enhanced data tools and predictive analytics to create systems tailored to specific companies’ demands.
Unlike some intelligence and communication tools that provide presets or templates for dashboards, Synerise’s services can be mixed and matched to create an analytics environment that is wholly personalised to the companies that use it. This includes RFM analysis, AI-based product and consumer segmentation, cart recommendations, and even personalised offers for consumers.
Having recently recruited top executives from Orange and Deloitte, Synerise may quickly become a top tool for marketers focused on the holistic customer experience.
Polish SaaS Is the New ‘It’ Sector
The growing tech sector in Poland is set to become a major hub for business development and international corporations. With a young and forward-looking industry that is tackling vital problems for businesses, the country is becoming a major force in the SaaS world.
