# Borys Musielak [@borysmusielak](https://hacklab.so/borysmusielak) Borys Musielak is Founder at SMOK Angels and Managing Partner and Co\-founder at SMOK Ventures, based in Warsaw. No AI coding activity was synced in the last 30 days. SMOK Ventures managing partner and co\-founder\. Engineer turned entrepreneur and investor, backing early\-stage founders in Poland and CEE\. Location: Warsaw Joined: 2026-07-13 0 followers · 0 following ## Links - [Luma](https://luma.com/user/michuk) - [GitHub](https://github.com/borysmusielak) - [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/musielak) - [X](https://x.com/michuk) - [Instagram](https://instagram.com/michuxxx) ## AI usage (All time) No activity in this period. ## Accomplishments ### [Sold Filmaster to Samba TV](https://samba.com/newsroom/samba-tv-acquires-filmaster-boosting-its-capabilities-in-artificial-intelligence) Founded Filmaster, a personalized film recommendation engine, grew it from a side project into a B2B personalization company, and sold 100% to San Francisco\-based Samba TV in June 2015\. ### [Raised SMOK Ventures Fund II, $25M\+](https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/30/smok-vcs-second-fund-is-another-signal-that-polands-tech-scene-is-hitting-its-stride/) Closed SMOK's second fund in January 2024 at a little over $25M, more than twice Fund I, from PFR Ventures and 60\+ private LPs, to back devtools, gamedev and AI startups across CEE and the diaspora\. ### [Launched SMOK Ventures Fund I](https://emerging-europe.com/smok-launches-new-vc-fund-for-polish-gaming-start-ups/) Co\-founded SMOK Ventures and launched its first fund in May 2019 with about 46M PLN, 80% from the Polish Development Fund, investing in 24 seed\-stage software startups from Poland\. ### [Built SMOK Angels to 200\+ angels in its first year](https://www.smokangels.com/) Launched a no\-fee angel network for Poland and CEE in 2025; it passed 200 active investors and made 17 investments within a year\. ### [Co\-founded Reaktor Warsaw](https://thenextweb.com/news/community-born-rise-polish-startups) Co\-founded Poland's first coworking space for startups in a villa in Żoliborz in 2011 and hosted the Open Reaktor community events there\. ### [Co\-founded ReaktorX](https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/14/warsaws-reaktorx-aims-to-help-busy-people-start-businesses/) Co\-founded, with Diana Koziarska, a non\-profit pre\-acceleration program for first\-time founders, announced in November 2016; its first batch of ten startups started in January 2017 and it went on to help 150\+ founders\. ### [Co\-initiated the Startup Poland foundation](https://startuppoland.org/) Initiated the founding coalition of Startup Poland in November 2014; the foundation, the voice of Polish startups and the country's largest tech think tank, was registered in April 2015 with him on its council\. ### [Built Samba TV's European engineering hub](https://borys.musielak.eu/) After the acquisition joined Samba TV's leadership in San Francisco, then returned to Europe to establish its European engineering hub, scaling the team from zero to more than 50 engineers\. ### [Led SMOK's investments in Authologic, Alokai, inSTREAMLY and Masthead Data](https://www.smok.vc/team/borys-musielak/) Led pre\-seed and seed deals including Authologic \($250K pre\-seed, first backer\), Alokai, formerly Vue Storefront \($1\.5M seed co\-led by SMOK\), inSTREAMLY, and Masthead Data \($1\.3M pre\-seed\), plus SLS, Slickshift and Primio\. ### [Published "The hidden CEE founders of Y Combinator"](https://michuk.medium.com/the-hidden-cee-founders-of-y-combinator-and-who-funds-them-91c753a68e35) Researched and wrote a 2026 analysis of 156 Y Combinator companies with founders from Central and Eastern Europe, and who funds them\. ### [Built Poland's largest open\-source community sites](https://borys.musielak.eu/) Founded and edited jakilinux\.org, LinuxNews\.pl and OSnews\.pl in 2005, a group of news and community services around GNU/Linux where he met the hackers who later helped build his startups\. ### [Named one of Poland's 50 most creative entrepreneurs](https://thenextweb.com/author/borys) Listed by Brief magazine among the fifty most creative Polish entrepreneurs in 2012\. ### [Minority owner of Dziki Warszawa](https://borys.musielak.eu/) Became a minority owner of the Warsaw basketball club in 2019; the club was later promoted to the top Polish league and played in European cups\. ### [Speaking at international technology and media events](https://www.linkedin.com/in/musielak/) LinkedIn lists speaking engagements at DLD, How to Web, infoShare, CinemaCon, MIPTV, CineEurope and Digital Freedom Festival\. The export does not supply individual talk dates or topics\. ## Experience ### Founder — SMOK Angels 2025\-06 – Present Warsaw · CEE No\-fee angel investor community for Poland and Central and Eastern Europe: 200\+ active angels, 17\+ investments in the first year, dinners and founder retreats\. The LinkedIn experience entry reports creating an angel network with 200\+ active investors and 17 investments in the second half of 2025; its summary gives a newer\-looking figure of 230\+ entrepreneurs and €25k–€100k tickets\. Both figures are retained as source statements without assuming identical membership definitions\. ### Investor — Juo 2024\-07 – Present Wrocław, Poland Investor role; the profile describes following monthly company reports\. ### Investor — 57hours 2023\-03 – Present Investor in a marketplace for outdoor adventures\. ### Supervisory board member — HiPets, StepApp \(SMOK portfolio\) 2022\-12 – Present Warsaw Supervisory board seats at portfolio companies: StepApp since December 2022 and HiPets since May 2023, per the Polish company register\. ### Seed Investor — Authologic 2021\-11 – Present Warsaw, Poland Seed investor in a company described as adding electronic identities to existing KYC workflows\. ### Seed Investor — Shen AI 2021\-02 – Present Seed investor in a smartphone\-based vital\-sign and AI health\-monitoring company, as described in LinkedIn\. ### Seed Investor — inStreamly 2020\-09 – Present LinkedIn dates the role from September 2020 and separately states that he led a pre\-seed round in 2021\. Both statements are retained as written; no round/start\-date equivalence is inferred\. ### Limited Partner — ReaktorX 2019\-07 – Present San Francisco Bay Area, United States Continues supporting ReaktorX as limited partner and advisor after naming Luca Stirbat as successor\. Listed as a separate ongoing role from July 2019\. ### Managing Partner and Co\-founder — SMOK Ventures 2019\-05 – Present Warsaw · San Francisco Early\-stage VC backing founders from Poland, CEE and the diaspora\. Fund I \(2019, \~46M PLN, PFR\-anchored, 24 companies\); Fund II \($25M\+, closed January 2024\)\. Leads deals in devtools, AI and gaming; led Authologic, Alokai, inSTREAMLY, Masthead Data, SLS, Slickshift and Primio\. LinkedIn title: Founding Partner\. The profile lists investments in Alokai \(YC W21\), inSTREAMLY, Authologic \(YC W21\), Omnipack, 57hours, Pstryk, Shen AI, Workee, Juo and IntoDNA\. It describes the fund as backing pre\-seed and seed software and gaming companies from Central and Eastern Europe\. ### Co\-founder and council member — Fundacja Startup Poland 2015\-04 – Present Warsaw · Kraków Initiated the founding coalition in November 2014; the foundation was registered in April 2015\. Member of the foundation council since registration; described as chairman of the board in a 2019 event bio\. LinkedIn describes co\-founding Startup Poland in November 2014 and an ongoing board\-member role, helping create an umbrella organisation representing Polish startups to policy\-makers, academics and media\. The existing April 2015 start marks formal foundation registration; the earlier founding coalition and formal registration dates are preserved separately\. ### Minority owner — Dziki Warszawa \(basketball club\) Present Warsaw Minority owner since 2019; a registry entry matching his name sat on the company's supervisory board from October 2020 to June 2024\. The club was promoted to the top Polish league and played in European cups\. LinkedIn separately lists Angel Investor from April 2020 to present and Supervisory Board Member from October 2020 to April 2024\. It states that the club reached Ekstraklasa in 2023\. The earlier cited local record gives ownership since 2019 and a registry board end in June 2024; those differences remain unresolved rather than overwriting the prior evidence\. ### Mentor — Founder Institute Warsaw, Google for Startups, Huge Thing Present Warsaw Mentor to early\-stage founders since 2013 at Founder Institute Warsaw and later at Google for Startups, Huge Thing and mspark\. ### Co\-founder — ReaktorX 2016\-11 – 2026\-05 Warsaw Non\-profit pre\-acceleration program for first\-time founders, co\-founded with Diana Koziarska and announced in November 2016\. First batch of ten startups in January 2017; 150\+ founders helped\. President of the board of ReaktorX sp\. z o\.o\. 2017–2019 and 2022–2026; the company entered liquidation in May 2026\. LinkedIn lists the operational co\-founder role as November 2016–July 2019, with alumni Haip, 3dapi, Heroify, Foodsi and Linghos; it separately lists a Limited Partner/advisor role from July 2019\. The existing timeline range is based on the earlier company\-register research and is retained rather than treating the operational and legal periods as interchangeable\. ### Co\-founder — Reaktor Warsaw 2011\-07 – 2020\-07 Warsaw Co\-founded Poland's first coworking space for startups, a Bay\-Area\-style startup mansion in Żoliborz, with Kuba Filipowski, Anna Walkowska and Paweł Czerski; moved in on 1 July 2011 and hosted the Open Reaktor events\. LinkedIn dates Reaktor Warsaw to July 2011–July 2020 and names Anna Walkowska and Kuba Filipowski as fellow co\-founders\. Hosted monthly OpenReaktor events with international speakers including Marvin Liao, Jerry Colonna, Paul Bragiel and Simon Cross\. ### Head of European Operations, Director of Product Management — Samba TV 2015\-06 – 2019\-06 San Francisco · Warsaw 2015–2019\. Joined after Samba TV acquired Filmaster: head of the Warsaw office, then on the leadership team in San Francisco, then back in Europe to establish and grow the European engineering hub from zero to 50\+ engineers and bring products to European markets\. LinkedIn dates the Director of Product Management role to June 2015–June 2019\. It reports building the Warsaw office and growing its team from 4 to 40 while leading EU operations and international product work across the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Australia\. The earlier biography reports a wider engineering hub of 50\+; both source figures are retained for review\. ### Founder and CEO — Filmaster 2010\-03 – 2015\-06 Warsaw Personalized film recommendation engine started as a side project in 2009, incorporated in March 2010, seed\-funded by HackFwd in 2011, and pivoted to B2B personalization and analytics for cinemas and TV providers \(Filmaster\.TV\)\. Acquired by Samba TV in June 2015\. LinkedIn lists a founder/CEO period beginning January 2009, preceding the March 2010 incorporation retained in the existing record\. Built entertainment\-industry personalisation and analytics for cinema exhibitors and TV operators, raised approximately €500k from international investors, and sold the company to Samba TV in June 2015\. ### Consultant — Rule Financial \(Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank projects\) 2007\-10 – 2010\-08 London 2007–2010\. Moved to London to try investment banking technology; built Filmaster\.pl after hours and left the corporate job in 2010\. LinkedIn dates Rule Financial consulting to October 2007–August 2010, Deutsche Bank work to November 2007–August 2010 and Barclays Capital work to January–September 2009\. Worked as software engineer, analyst and connector across bank teams on derivatives processing, including swaps/swaptions, FpML and Tibco Business Works\. ### Founder and editor — OSmedia: jakilinux\.org, LinuxNews\.pl, OSnews\.pl Poland 2005–2007\. Built and edited a group of news and community sites around GNU/Linux and open source, the largest in Poland at the time\. LinkedIn dates Founder at OSmedia to January 2005–January 2012 and describes GNU/Linux/open\-source media sites including jakilinux\.org and OSnews\.pl generating millions of monthly page views\. The earlier biography summarises this chapter as 2005–2007; the different role spans are flagged for review without inventing a resolution\. ### Software engineer, team lead — eo Networks, empolis, CoCoNet Warsaw · Germany 2003–2007\. First job in 2003 as a junior programmer at eo, hired by Stefan Batory while still a student; then engineering and a first team\-lead role at empolis and CoCoNet in Germany\. LinkedIn lists eo Networks Software Engineer \(July 2002–December 2004\): J2EE, XSLT, PostgreSQL and Debian GNU/Linux for back\-office, archive\-security and publishing CMS projects\. At empolis Poland \(January 2005–January 2006\), developed J2EE/Oracle/Solaris search and knowledge\-base systems for Rzeczpospolita and the Presidential archive\. At coconet \(January 2006–September 2007\), led a small engineering team building fintech products used by Rabobank and ING\. Earlier biography describes the first job as beginning in 2003; that discrepancy remains open\. ## Education ### M\.Sc\. Computer Science, Software Engineering — PJATK \(Polish\-Japanese Academy of Information Technology\) Warsaw Graduated in 2004, with distinction per his Impact'23 speaker bio\. LinkedIn lists M\.Sc\. in Computer Science – Software Engineering at the Polish\-Japanese Academy of Information Technology for 1999–2004\. Year\-only dates remain in prose; no months are invented\. ### Erasmus/Socrates exchange semester — University of Westminster London Exchange semester in 2002 during his computer science studies\.