Digital Dragons Accelerator – up to €60 000 euro to develop your start-up!

Young foreign studios and teams with a prototype in production, or with track record in earlier games production and release.

The programme offers an opportunity to participate in the acceleration from any location in the world.

1.Non-equity grant up to €10,000 in the 3-month-long stage 1

• soft-landing – purpose: incorporation of a company in Poland, preliminary development of the company, staff employment, product development
• company development – purpose: signing an agreement on further cooperation with a publisher/investor

2. Non-equity grant up to €50,000 in the 6-month-long stage 2

– acceleration: cooperation with a publisher or investor moderated by the accelerator team to set up the product ready for implementation

– access to a cluster of experts in the industry who will help to develop the company and the product, product delivery, support in business model, employment of experts, and acquisition of VC investments

3. Access to the Digital Dragons ecosystem: options to exhibit and promote at the events organised by the KPT for the games development sector: Digital Dragons Conference, Digital Dragons Academy, access to the top experts in the sector, participation in international business events of the industry.

4. Cooperation with the partners of the Digital Dragons Accelerator, publishers and investors, to develop/publish the game, or to obtain investments.

5. Help in finding businesses and institutions supporting start-ups in all the formal matters (incorporating and running a company) throughout the acceleration.

• 1 March – 23 May 2022 – recruitment 
• 23 May – 30 June 2022 – selection and evaluation of applications 
• June/July – announcement of results 
• September – November 2022 – stage I (soft-landing + development)  
• December 2022 – June 2023 – stage II (acceleration) 

The KPT has supported the development of the games development industry in Poland for over 10 years, and organised the leading Central European conference for the sector: the Digital Dragons Conference gathering over 3000 people from all over the world. For a number of years, its Digital Dragons Incubator has also supported young game development studios in business development. We are the most mature games ecosystem in Poland, and offer:

• access to the tools for promoting the product in the Polish market
• access to experts, game dev sector leaders
• access to highly educated and creative staff
• various support programmes and options to cooperate in Poland and Europe
• support for your first business steps on a new market.

Digital Dragons Accelerator is a part of the KPT Poland Prize, project supported by PARP – Polish Agency of Entrepreneurship Development. An Accelerator is helping companies and teams, which already have some products on early-stage with fast access to publishers and VC investors with a grant of up to 70 000 euros. In addition the team behind the Accelerator has big experience in consulting young indie game dev studios and a wide network, which we are happy to share with acceleration participants.

The company does not need to be registered before applying, it has to register after being accepted to the Accelerator.

Teams, individual persons and companies outside of Poland, which are currently working on the game or a product for game dev sector and have experience in publishing or creating games and products.

Participation in the program is free, but you need to have financial liquidity, for the start of the company and some kind of expanses for the beginning of the acceleration process. The team has to pay the assumption of the activity or possible arrival to Poland and stay on the spot on its own. Some costs can be paid from grants.

If the KPIs are not achieved by the studio, the next tranche of the grant will not be paid. But we don’t have any contractual penalties for failure to achieve the goals.

As long, as you didn’t take part in other Poland Prize programs, you can join Digital Dragons Accelerator.

With technical problems with Gust.com, you should contact their helpdesk. If you have questions about DD Accelerator, you can write to Klaudia: kmagdziak@kpt.krakow.pl or Łukasz: lleszczynski@kpt.krakow.pl.

The full list of our partners is available on the DD Accelerator website. You can work only with one of them.

Together with your partner and the DD Accelerator team, you will set the goals that you want to achieve during the program. We will assess and adjust them in terms of publishing or investing. Together with your patron, you will work to achieve those goals.

The grant will be paid in tranches depending on the fulfillment of the set goals – 45% of the grant value is paid for the last KPI, the remaining parts are determined at the beginning of the acceleration.

We have 13 places for the first edition of DD Accelerator and 10 for the second. But if we find more interesting teams that we want to work with, we can invite more studios to the program.

We are working with publishers and investors who are interested in various games. It does not matter whether you make mobile games, PC games, or consoles – we will help your team achieve your goals. We also invite startups working on, f.e. a specialized product or service for the game dev industry.

The DD Incubator is a program for Polish game studios, while the DD Accelerator is dedicated only to foreign teams. However, if you go through the Accelerator first and you still want to learn more, you will be able to later apply to the DD Incubator.

KPT has been supporting the gaming industry in Poland for over 10 years, incl. organizing DD Incubator. The DD Accelerator is the first program aimed exclusively at foreign teams that can strengthen the Polish ecosystem.

Each team will get an individual acceleration program, which accounts for the expectations of the team and the publisher/investor with whom it will sign the contract. Together we establish individual goals that studios will work on. Startups will get all the support they need from both the partner and the acceleration team.

The main goal is to acquire business competencies that will help you develop your company faster. To achieve it, we will recommend a number of experienced mentors and consultants in every field of running a company in the game dev industry.

The aim of the project is to increase the level of innovation in the economy, particularly in sectors such as Industry 4.0 and gamedev, by bringing 40 foreign startups to Poland by the end of 2023. 26 of these will represent the games industry, while 14 will represent Industry 4.0.

The project includes three editions of acceleration development programmes for foreign teams: two editions will focus on young studios from the games industry, and one on startups with projects responding to Industry 4.0 challenges. Each edition will include a 3-month softlanding and team development process, a 6-month acceleration of startups and preparing them for commercial cooperation with business partners, and finally post-acceleration support. During the 3rd edition of the acceleration, startups will follow a specially prepared development path, realising milestones related to the development of their products. The project is a response to market challenges, the growing importance of industrial innovation and the dynamic development of the games industry.

The leader of the project is KPT, but an important role will be played by business partners interested in supporting selected start-ups that respond to their defined business challenges. As part of acquiring participants for development programmes, KPT will carry out extensive scouting activities on a global scale.

– 20 teams-beneficiaries of the KPT Poland Prize accelerator programme for the games industry have established companies in Poland

– participants, developing their products, have gone through the acceleration cycle in cooperation with business partners

– participants received grants to support business and product development

– studios participating in the programme joined the Polish gamedev community, enriching the rich landscape of the domestic industry with their experience

PLN 11,298,820.33. The project is 85% co-financed by European Funds.