Marcin Kowalik

Marcin P. Kowalik is a Polish entrepreneur-turned-venture-capitalist with more than a decade of experience in tech. Before moving into VC, he founded two companies, both of which achieved exits — one sold to a Norwegian strategic buyer and the other via a private-equity-backed management buyout. That operating background — building and selling companies himself — is central to how he positions himself to founders.

Kowalik co-founded and led Black Pearls VC, a Gdańsk-based early-stage fund and the first Polish VC in the global Kauffman Fellows network. As Solo General Partner there he built a B2B, sector-focused portfolio spanning digital health, enterprise software, fintech, future of work and deep tech, and is best known for a "dragon" exit that returned 18.6x when a portfolio company was acquired by a NASDAQ-listed buyer. Black Pearls VC formally concluded its investment period on December 31, 2023, and Balnord is its successor vehicle.

At Balnord, Kowalik serves as General Partner alongside co-GP Aleksander Dobrzyniecki, leading a fund dedicated to Europe's "reindustrialisation and technological autonomy" through frontier and dual-use technology. In November 2025 the firm announced it had surpassed its €70M target (oversubscribed), with a final close of up to €100M targeted for mid-2026.

Kowalik is an alumnus of Kauffman Fellows Class #22, Vice President of PSIK (the Polish Private Equity & Venture Capital Association), and a member of Invest Europe's Defence Task Force. He studied economics at Łazarski University in Warsaw and completed postgraduate work in controlling and enterprise management at the University of Gdańsk. He is married with three children.

• Invests at pre-seed and seed, writing €0.5M–€3M initial checks as lead or co-lead, with reserves to follow on up to €12M per company.
• Backs frontier and dual-use / deep tech — space, defence, healthcare/bio, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, robotics, cybersecurity, supply chain and industrial resilience — with an explicit emphasis on dual-use impact.
• Frames the mission around European sovereignty and reindustrialisation: in his own words, *"We're investing in the backbone of European industrialisation."*
• Looks for defensible technology, resilient founders, and companies that can scale globally from the Baltic Sea region and Northern Europe.
• Values founder-market fit and traction: Balnord highlights that its first four portfolio companies raised €40M in follow-on rounds and generated €35M in revenue, signaling a preference for capital-efficient, commercially-validated teams.