Filip Vurdelja: Building Poland and CEE’s Next Generation of Global Companies

Filip Vurdelja is the co-founder of AGX, a U.S.-based early-stage deep-tech fund investing in Poland and the broader Central and Eastern European region.

The fund was built around a conviction that Poland is entering a new stage of economic and technological development, with the potential to become one of major innovation hubs globally.

Vurdelja's investment thesis is shaped by his 20 years of  experience in the United States and  a long-standing connection to Poland where he grew up.

"I wanted to combine my American investment experience and network with my understanding of Poland, and build an investment thesis around the country and the region’s potential to become one of leading economic and innovation engines globally," he says.

From BlackRock to Polish Deep Tech

Vurdelja began his investment career at BlackRock in New York, working with some of the world's largest institutional allocators, including pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. While at the firm, he also spent time working on strategic assignments in the Middle East and London.  The experience gave him a firsthand view of how major investors and countries approach alternative strategies and long-term economic growth.

He later joined 8090 Industries at inception as the first partner outside of the two founding GPs, focusing on venture capital and deep tech at a time when relatively few firms were investing in the space at scale. During his time there, the firm launched two funds and its assets under management grew to more than $400 million. 

In the meantime, Vurdelja began making angel investments in several early stage companies including ElevenLabs, an AI voice company co-founded by two Polish entrepreneurs, and one of the most successful start-ups of the recent years. 

The experience shaped how Vurdelja thinks about venture capital.

"I always think of venture capital as a view on the economy and the future 10 or 15 years ahead," he says.

Throughout his career, Poland remained a constant reference point. Having grown up there, Vurdelja continued returning every few months and became increasingly impressed by the country's economic development and emerging technology ecosystem.

That perspective eventually led him and Iwona Cymerman to launch AGX. Cymerman is a PhD scientist turned healthtech founder and venture investor; her prior fund ranks in the top decile globally.

Why Poland Now

For context, Poland has been the fastest-growing developed economy in the world over the past 30 years—second only to China. In 2025, GDP grew 3.6%, the highest of any large EU economy and more than double the EU average. Growth is projected to accelerate to 3.7% in 2026.

Vurdelja sees several forces coming together in Poland.

The first is talent. Poland has produced technical founders behind some of the world's most successful technology companies, including OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Snowflake and ICEYE. Yet much of that talent has historically built global companies outside Poland.

The second is the country's manufacturing base. While many Western European economies have seen manufacturing decline, Poland has continued to build its industrial capacity driving close to 30% of its GDP. Vurdelja believes this could become increasingly important as artificial intelligence changes the technology landscape.

"Every day, you have a better model replacing the previous one. The technological moat is becoming harder to defend, and I think the physical aspect of technology is becoming increasingly important," he says.

The third is safety. Poland's geopolitical position has made defense spending a major priority (the country spends close to 5% of its GDP on defense and has the third largest land forces after the U.S. and Turkey across NATO), while also helping create a growing innovation ecosystem around cybersecurity, energy, space and defense technologies.

For Vurdelja, the combination creates an unusual opportunity: a large pool of technical talent, a strong industrial base and growing demand for technologies that address some of the region's most pressing challenges.

Building a Global Deep-Tech Pipeline

AGX — short for “Against Gravity X” — is a U.S.-based fund with a local presence in Poland, investing in early-stage deep tech across Poland and the broader Central and Eastern European region. The name reflects Vurdelja's view that the region holds opportunities that are often overlooked as capital and talent gravitate toward the U.S. and Western European markets.

Poland is the anchor, but Vurdelja also looks across the Baltics, Ukraine, Romania, the Balkans and other neighboring markets. He sees the region as a large pool of technical talent, but not necessarily as the final market for the companies AGX backs.

Instead, Central and Eastern Europe can serve as a launchpad: a place where founders can validate their technology, acquire early customers and iterate quickly before expanding into larger markets, with a big focus on the U.S

AGX focuses on four areas: safety, health, efficiency and what it calls the "X Factor"—technologies that could fundamentally change how entire industries operate.

The fund is also willing to invest unusually early, including in companies that are still developing their technology and have little or no revenue.

"We're not afraid to become the first investors in the company," Vurdelja says. "We can be as early as angel investors."

But capital is only part of what AGX aims to provide. The fund is designed to help companies access the U.S. market, follow-on financing, and the commercial partnerships and technical talent they need to scale.

What Makes a Global Founder

For Vurdelja, the difference between a regional startup and a global company often comes down to the founder's mindset.

"At the end of the day, it's the founder himself or herself. It's the mindset," he says.

He looks for founders who think globally from the beginning rather than seeing Poland or Central and Eastern Europe as the natural limits of their market.

Sometimes that mindset reveals itself in the earliest steps. Founders often describe a staged path to scale: win the domestic market, then the region, then go international. Vurdelja reads that sequencing as a limit on ambition rather than a plan for it. The companies that go on to matter, he argues, are global from the start — they seek out customers and feedback in the hardest markets before they feel ready, and let that shape the product rather than the other way round.

The same applies to talent. He contrasts founders who immediately look for the best people they can find in New York, San Francisco or elsewhere with those who hesitate to hire someone simply because they are based hundreds of kilometers from headquarters.

"These are the nuances that sometimes you can catch very early on," he says.

For Vurdelja, building a global company starts with thinking globally long before the company itself becomes global.

Building the Next Generation of Global Champions

Vurdelja wants AGX to help create a new generation of globally recognised companies from Poland and the broader region.

He believes the mindset of Polish founders has already begun to shift. A new generation has grown up with tangible examples of companies such as ElevenLabs, ICEYE, and other technology successes originating from the region and reaching global markets.

"I am super bullish on this new generation of talent that is here," he says.

His own ambition for AGX is straightforward: to back companies that become globally recognised businesses while remaining connected to their origins in Poland and the surrounding countries.

"My personal dream is  that AGX is known for backing early the global champions that came from the region," he says.