Young founders like to talk about “disruption”. Marcin Hejka has experienced several of these in his life. From a 20-year-old student in post-Eastern Bloc Poland to global vice president of Intel Capital – and today co-founder of OTB Ventures, an internationally active deep tech fund with around 350 million euros in assets under management.
With OTB, Hejka has specialized in space tech, enterprise AI, semiconductors and novel computing approaches – always with an eye on European sovereignty, dual use and defense technology.
The end of communism was the beginning of his career
Hejka's career began with a historical break: the fall of communism in Poland. As a student at the University of Gdańsk, he landed directly in the first freely elected Solidarity government cabinet – in a ministry that wrote Poland's new strategy for foreign trade and investment. “As a 20-year-old, I was able to help write the country’s economic opening strategy,” says the investor. “It felt like a complete reset: whatever experience there was from the communist era was seen as more of a burden, and suddenly those who hadn’t had any had an advantage.”
Source: https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/technologie/alle-founder-sollten-diesen-investor-kennen-fuenf-unicorns-sprechen-fuer-sich/
