Last week we participated in the European Start-up Days, an event at the 8th European Economic Congress (EEC), which took place in Katowice, Poland. This Start-up forum was a quite new addition to the congress, where many local start-ups represented themselves. There were two start-ups from Hungary as well, including SimTeam.

We were glad to see that the EEC visitors were really interested in the accompanying start-up event, and they visited the Start-up Days looking for new opportunities and inventions. We were able to expand our network by talking to multiple corporate representatives and venture capitalists, too. Beyond having a place at InnoTrade's booth, we also participated in two panel discussions during the two days we have spent there:

• Good practices in cooperation between corporations and start-ups
• Possibilities of financial support by big business and corporations

During the discussions we represented Hungarian experiences in start-up financing and cooperation with big corporations. We talked with CEO's of enterprises about the cooperation opportunities, and encouraged our audience to initiate cooperation with corporations, as they mutually like to work together with start-ups, who are important sources of innovative solutions.

Among the participants of the discussions were Microsoft Poland, Bakalland, Euvic and Polish oil and natural gas company PGNiG. In the discussion about financial support possibilities the participants were mainly venture capitalists and start-up incubators. We partly compared experiences between Hungary and Poland, on the other hand SimTeam represented a start-up's point of view about fundraising.

Our presence and booth in the conference was organized and provided by the Hungarian Tradehouse's Innotrade programme. We received a lot of help from the organizers and the economic representatives of the Hungarian embassy in Poland. We perceived the event as very useful, and it confirmed us that Polish-Hungarian relationships must be strengthened and cared about even more.

Our next such visit in Poland will be in June, where we attend the 9th Investment Forum in Tarnów. Stay with us for more details about that conference.