Special economic zones are increasingly involved in supporting young, innovative companies. The Łódź Special Economic Zone and its acceleration program Startup Spark 2.O, co-financed by European Funds from the Intelligent Development Program, are the best example of this.
26 investors and 19 startups were officially welcomed in the Łódź Special Economic Zone. The investors are dominated by companies from the food, furniture and chemical industries, but there are also e-commerce services and a modern Data Center. Startups presented the innovations they had been working on for several months. Their paths have come together on one stage, because the Łódź SEZ creates opportunities for young technology companies to cooperate with investors.
The Łódź Special Economic Zone is a catalyst for the investment development of companies from the SME sector and large investors. This is another step towards strengthening the competitiveness of the Polish economy – support in the process of optimization and digitization of companies, especially in cooperation with young technological entrepreneurs. Technologies must respond to the current needs of the economy, its real problems or challenges. The Lodz Special Economic Zone is not only modern investments, but also thousands of jobs. It is very encouraging that more companies will join the ecosystem of the Łódź Economic Zone, says Prime Minister Jarosław Gowin.
Participation in the acceleration program is an opportunity for young companies to establish cooperation with corporations, develop a business model or attract investors. I am convinced that qualifying for the program will be a turning point in the development of another 19 start-ups, said Deputy Minister of Funds and Regional Policy Waldemar Buda.
26 investors who intend to invest nearly PLN 1.3 billion and create and maintain over 2,000 jobs have officially joined the Łódź SEZ.
Both SME companies as well as large Polish and foreign production and service companies have joined the Łódź SEZ. This shows that we have built a wide range of investor support programs. Today, the Łódź zone offers investment incentives in the form of public aid, a base of investment areas, a modern industrial park, co-financing of training, as well as support for startups and the creation of bridges between them and investors. Cooperation with startups results in the implementation of technologies in the factories of our investors that allow to optimize costs, energy consumption, predict failures, increase safety – says Marek Michalik, president of the Łódź SEZ.
Polish and SME companies dominate among the investors welcomed in the zone. They account for over 60 percent of all investments. Although there are also several large foreign companies, such as Indorama Ventures Recycling Poland, an Indian producer of polyester flakes made of PET materials, the chemical group S54 from Luxembourg, French Roldrob – a European potentate on the poultry processing market, or the American WAW 11, which in Warsaw is building on several hectares of modern Data Center.
We are a partner of Startup Spark from the beginning of this initiative, i.e. from 2017. Thanks to the cooperation with the Łódź Special Economic Zone, we met many young technology companies at that time and together with them we considered the use of innovations created by them in the company’s operations. As a company with a global reach, we offer startups our international experience, knowledge of consumers’ needs and full business facilities. The advantage of our partners is an unconventional approach to meeting consumer expectations and solving business tasks, as well as excellent knowledge of technological innovations. So we have the opportunity to complement each other and create solutions that are waiting for us, but our boss, who is the recipient of our products, comments Małgorzata Mejer, P&G Corporate Communication Director in Central Europe.
Thanks to the close cooperation with Procter & Gamble, we have added a fully developed survey module to our neuromarketing research platform, realeye.io, which perfectly complements the research process with declarative responses from panelists. From the very beginning, the module itself responded directly to the needs of the Technology Recipient. It was developed together with Polish and Brazilian P&G and despite the involvement of four parties (it should not be forgotten that everything was coordinated by the fantastic Spark team from the Lodz Special Economic Zone) the whole process went surprisingly smoothly and at RealEye we can boast of additional platform functions – Adam Cellary, Managing Director of RealEye sp. z o. o.