Disclaimer: Unless noted otherwise, views and analysis expressed here are the author's own and based on public sources. The article is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional for investment decisions.

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When we were kids in the 1990s Baltics, Poland was the mythical place you “drove through without stopping” (to bring a used car from Germany). By the time we graduated from university, in the mid-2000s, Poland had become Europe’s Mexico: a prolific importer of capital and exporter of labour. And in 2026? Having recently pulled a GDP sorpasso on Spain (on a per capita PPP basis), Poland, or at least Warsaw, does not feel “emerging” at all. Nor does it feel particularly “Western”: too clean, too safe, too dynamic.

And yet in one respect Poland punches well below its weight: Private Equity dealmaking. According to Invest Europe, in 2023-25 Polish buyout activity added up to €1.5B, less than 1% of Europe’s total.

Is this a malaise or an opportunity? To find the answer, we teamed up with First Point Partners to organise an invite-only Serial Acquirer Summit: our first in the country. On 15 October, alongside 50-odd Polish investment professionals we hosted international GPs and LPs including Builders Associés, Lead Edge, Macquarie, Opera Investment Partners, Moore Heritage, Bright Capital, Aspira Partners and Clearsight. 

How’s that for a line-up?  

Builders, Opera, and Sterling (the data room provider) sponsored the event, along with Warsaw Equity Group, a hybrid family office/growth equity investor. Thanks guys - we hope the ROI was good!  

What follows is a summary of the Summit’s three panels, plus a “composite narrative” constructed from all the conversations we squeezed into a 48-hour window: 

Important caveat before we dive in: the transcripts have been significantly shortened and edited to keep this article to a manageable length.

Sorry, one more thing 🙋‍♂️<2 weeks to secure Early Bird tickets to the Redeye Serial Acquirer Conference in Stockholm: 17-18 March 2027. This is THE conference for compounders and Long Term Hold enthusiasts. A place where you can randomly run into people like Ramsey Sayoun from Evergreen Services Group or Eiichi Arai from NGTG, the “Danaher of Japan” whom we interviewed on the spot.   

Anyway, it’s time you secured your seat! Unsure if it’s worth your time? Check out the video highlights from this year’s conference. 

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Before we dive into the Summit transcript, some context. First Point Partners is Central and Eastern Europe’s go-to Private Equity executive search firm. First Point’s Managing Partner Anna Bebel (pictured below, left, next to Alex and Helen from RollUpEurope) has been in the game for over a decade, during which she built up an enviable Rolodex.   

From conversations with Anna and the Summit’s attendees, 80% of whom hailed from Private Equity, we could sense a palpable frustration with the status quo, caused by three factors. 

One, complaints about longtime partners at local funds “hogging carry” and blocking career path (hey, we’ve heard this one before!).

Two, with IT services on the back foot, the Polish PE community is in thrall to a healthcare investing mania. The obsession with fertility clinics, outpatient clinics and rehabs is understandable given the aging population, rising healthcare spending etc. - but it’s crowding out other initiatives.

Three, international mid- and large-cap firms have struggled to crack Poland, for reasons such as: 

The root cause of these problems? For all of the vertigo-inducing macro pronouncements, Poland’s “PE TAM” is smaller than you’d expect. According to Eurostat and Statistics Poland, the country has 4,000 businesses with 250+ employees, versus 5,000 in Spain and 15,000 in Germany. Within this subset however, majority foreign-owned businesses represent 42% of the count and 48% of the revenues. Factoring in state-owned businesses, the figures rise to 51% and 61%, respectively.

Geopolitics or not, you get why megacap funds are lukewarm!

Having said that, if you're not chasing Żabka-style deals (the ubiquitous convenience retailer which CVC recently offloaded to Couche-Tard at an $11B EV), we have good news for you. The number of Polish privately owned businesses with 10-249 employees is 46,000. The average turnover is PLN 50M (€11M / $13M) - and growing. And yet, outside of “hot” industries like healthcare the competition for these SMEs ranges from non-existent to limited.

Could Poland be Europe’s rollup Eldorado? You decide - aided by our insights from the Summit.

Anna Bebel moderated a panel with three speakers:

One, Luke Parsons. After a decade at Summit Partners in healthcare, Luke joined Moore Heritage to build out a private markets franchise, investing across the entire emerging manager stack: independent sponsors, search funds, HoldCos and funds.

Two, James Roebuck, who co-founded Opera Investment Partners, a leading investor in independent sponsors, after a stint at Clearsight, another LP that pioneered investing in emerging GPs in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. See our recent interview with Opera. 

Three, Waldemar Pilch, an Independent Sponsor himself. Waldemar returned to Poland in 2016 after 18 years in New York, mostly in investment banking. He took over a family business, scaled it, and eventually exited to a PE-backed buyer. Because this wasn't enough, Waldemar decided to go again, as a self-funded searcher. In late 2022, he acquired formeds, a Polish clean-label supplements brand. 2.5 years later, a leading Polish Private Equity firm Enterprise Investors invested in formeds, thus crystallising a 4x MOIC for Waldemar’s investor Novastone.    

Anna Bebel (AB): Let's start by clearing up the confusion. James, Luke, what is the difference between a search fund and an independent sponsor - and do you invest in both?

James Roebuck (JR): For us, an independent sponsor brings a concrete deal: a well-defined target, at a specific valuation, with a specific value creation plan. The sponsor stewards the business and the plan, but from board level. In a search fund, you back the idea of buying a business by funding the search, which may or may not lead to a transaction. What we like about the independent sponsor model is that we see exactly what's being acquired and can make a judgement call. A search fund has a blind element: you don't know what the target or the valuation will be.

The other difference is that independent sponsors can hold several deals. We've backed some sponsors repeatedly over the years, a few for as long as 15 years. In the search model, the searcher becomes the management and leads value creation and operations themselves.

Luke Parsons (LP): My view has changed over time, partly because of mistakes I've made in this market. Coming from direct investing, I was drawn to what I knew: underwriting an end market or an asset. But whatever you call it, search or independent sponsor, these are gradients of the same thing. As capital providers we're putting someone in between us and the asset, and at the start I underestimated how much the quality of that intermediary matters.

A lot of people in this market say they'll back a great sponsor even on a mediocre deal. I don't think we have to choose. There are so many great opportunities that we should look for great sponsors and great deals. But if you do one deal in this space, get the sponsor underwriting right. I look for track record, skin in the game, and motivation. 

AB: Waldemar, your journey doesn't fit neatly into either category. You chose to do it self-funded, and you subsequently ran the business. Why? 

Waldemar Pilch (WP): I actually wanted to start a supplements company and even wrote a business plan. I shared it with a friend who's a prominent angel investor in Poland, and his reaction was: sounds cool, but it's going to be hard. Why don't you buy an existing supplements business instead? So I didn't come from a deal-making perspective. I had a value creation plan that was specific to the vitamins and supplements industry.

As for doing it solo, the simple answer is that the economics are much better that way. I wasn't worried about the operational aspect, having previously run a company, and I had 4 interns supporting me during search.

AB: James, imagine an experienced PE professional comes to you tomorrow wanting to become an independent sponsor. What would you need to see?

JR: It's about pairing a quality deal with the right characteristics in the individual and the platform they want to build, but we're company-first. In our past life we were non-standard fund investors, for example, the only LP in a €50M fund. We effectively sat in on the Investment Committee, worked alongside the sponsor, visited the companies and met management. 

So we look at every deal through three pillars. First, a high-quality business, which for us means a services company with a high degree of recurring revenue, a quality margin structure and strong cash generation. Second, that company at an attractive valuation, typically 5x to around 8x at the high end. Third, a value creation plan that's non-heroic: without reinventing the wheel, you make a solid 3x, and by pulling a couple of extra levers you make much more. If the deal has all three, that's a solid foundation.

Then the sponsor. Like Luke said, alignment: are they putting their own money in? Are they bringing a specialist skill set or mindset distilled over many years, perhaps at a larger fund? A process DNA brought from another firm? It's not easy to find. We track about 300 deals a year and invest in about 8. But there's a clear market trend towards deal-by-deal investing.

AB: Do you see patterns in the teams that come to you? Should they be people with similar backgrounds who worked together, or a mix of experience?

JR: It's less about the team format. We see everything from a 16-person independent sponsor doing deal-by-deal to a single person with a three-slide deck looking for capital. It's more about mindset. These sponsors tend to have been frustrated in a previous setup, with too much pressure, politics in the firm or corporate bureaucracy. They decide they want to invest their own money and deploy their skills in a less-penetrated part of the market where they have an edge. But they need a capital partner, because they don't have enough money themselves. Again and again we find people like that, and we try to be that partner, providing €5-15M of equity even at an early stage. They don't need to be particularly mature.

AB: Waldemar, you've been on the other side of this conversation. What was hardest to prove to investors at the start?

WP: Pitching to investors wasn't hard; finding the company was hard. One investor asked me in the IC call: do you love the company? If you can honestly answer yes, the numbers, the strategy and the valuation all follow. But if you acquire a subpar business, catching up through value creation is nigh on impossible. In my case, the value creation plan was two-fold. One, building out the e-commerce, digital media and performance marketing footprints. Two, team: having the right people and giving them the right incentives.

AB: Luke, James, where do you usually see the risks? What do people commonly get wrong?

LP: The cost of doing a bad deal in a roll-up, particularly early, is far higher than the cost of paying slightly too much. If you're looking solely for value, you're probably looking through the wrong lens. I'm not an operator, but from an investor and board perspective I'd encourage you to look for high-quality businesses that won't take up a huge amount of your time. If you get the underwriting or the management incentives wrong, or hire someone who leaves to go play golf, you as the sponsor will have to step in and fix it. So get your first deals right. You can work your way out of a mediocre start, but it will take up a lot of your time.

JR: We've passed on a number of great companies with sensible value creation plans because they were simply too expensive. Being an independent sponsor is not easy at all, and I have great respect for those who do it. One reason is that you're often competing on valuation against over-capitalised funds under pressure to deploy. My advice to sponsors again and again is to play to your strengths. You have a skill set, experience or ecosystem in a sector that gives you a natural advantage. The founder wants to work with you because of what you bring to the table, and that puts natural downward pressure on the valuation.

AB: Luke, what returns do you expect, and do you have examples of value creation that worked out really well?

LP: There's an inherent amount of multiple arbitrage in buy & builds, with Simago being a perfect example. Further reading: <3 years, a €525M exit, 10x sponsor MOIC. We X-rayed Simago, the radiology rollup that galvanised the French rollup mania. 

I segment the market at roughly €10M and €30M of EBITDA. That's where you reach new pools of capital that are often willing to pay even higher prices for platforms, particularly where acquisition and integration functions are in place and reporting and KPIs are standardised. That drives some organic growth too.

But the real secret to massive returns are the buy and sell decisions. If you buy at a very reasonable price and convince someone to buy the platform at a greatly elevated price, that's where you see the returns that attracted many of you to this. You don't make 4x in a roll-up primarily through organic growth, deleveraging or margin expansion. You make 6x from a buyer willing to pay 15-17x for a platform where they can keep driving value. So we underwrite 3x, we love 4x, but we look for the ability to make 6x-plus because of that multiple.

AB: James, what's the one thing someone should have in place before leaving their PE career to become an independent sponsor?

JR: A two-year runway. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes time to build the network, get your name out there, find people willing to have the conversation and then raise capital. Two years is probably the minimum to plan for.

AB: Luke, what attitude should you NOT bring to the process?

LP: A lack of humility. It can very quickly turn off the people you're raising capital from. It's very easy for people with successful PE careers to believe this will be easy. It's not. You may have been a very successful principal or partner at a fund, doing a deal every nine months for ten years, and it's easy to convince yourself that the deal and the capital raising will fall into place. Be humble and know that it's hard. If you approach the market with that understanding, you'll greatly increase your chances of success.

Audience question: Waldemar, you mentioned four interns. How did sourcing work for you? Finding the first deal is the toughest part.

WP: I ran a very disciplined process. Today, with AI, you'd probably need 2 interns instead of 4. We had a proper CRM, and every morning at 9am we spent 15-20 minutes going through the deals. Daily outreach of c.100 companies carried out by the interns. We worked from databases and ran constant proprietary, high-value outreach in the space I wanted to focus on. 

The legal aspect was more challenging. While I had some experience with financial structuring, structuring the first shareholder agreement across multiple jurisdictions, with investors from different countries, was tough. As a pioneering searcher, I had to create the paperwork from scratch. 

For the next session, Roman Fedynyak from Sterling, a data room provider, interviewed Adam Janczewski, the founder of Jutro Medical, and Jan Nalbert from Warsaw Equity Group (WEG), an investor in Jutro. 

Two words about the speakers. 

Jutro is a roll-up of Polish primary care clinics. Jutro carries a distinct startup feel, but it’s no novice. Adam and team had spent 5 years developing software for clinics before buying a single one. Their M&A journey began in 2022, eventually scaling to 1 acquisition per month, with c.30 clinics in the portfolio. WEG is a hybrid family office / growth equity investor that writes checks of €4-€15M in return for minority stakes in fast-growing technology businesses. 

Roman Fedynyak (RF): AI-enabled roll-ups are a hyped-up topic right now. Puls Biznesu, “the WSJ of Poland” recently profiled Jutro as a tech-powered clinic chain. Is there hard evidence that you're not just riding the hype?

Adam Janczewski (AJ): We have hard evidence of value creation. When we buy a clinic, it's often neglected: accessibility is poor and quality of care is mediocre. The first thing we do is improve accessibility, enabling patients to book appointments using public health insurance. Then, we improve the quality of care. Traditional clinics score very poorly on NPS. Our NPS is about 86 and the average visit rating is 4.94 / 5. Our patient base keeps growing through word of mouth. Meanwhile Jutro’s software makes doctors more productive, allowing them to see more patients. That way, we can grow the patient base without necessarily adding staff. Happy patients, happy doctors, and ultimately an EBITDA uplift for us.

RF: …and happy investors. Jan, you must get plenty of teasers for tech-enabled roll-ups. What convinced you to invest in Jutro?

Jan Nalbert (JN): When Adam first presented the case, the business was already growing organically through greenfield clinics. The unit economics were robust. On top of that, there was an M&A strategy that had been de-risked through a number of acquisitions. What impressed us the most was the strong team with the capability to execute fast, to consolidate the market. 

RF: Adam, it's a competitive market, with large buyers like Lux Med, Medicover and others acquiring. What's your “secret sauce” for convincing sellers? 

AJ: There's no secret sauce! It’s a competitive market. We’re seldom the only buyer. Jutro’s USP is that we are the only consolidator in Poland backed by Polish capital. We’re not a large, faceless corporation. I'm the founder and I'm in control, not a fund that will flip it in 3-5 years. Doctors appreciate that. They run into their patients on a day-to-day basis. They care about the legacy. Doctors can check out our existing clinics, and the striking “before and after” transformation.

We differentiate ourselves through the process, too. On smaller deals we do minimum due diligence that protects us - without scaring the doctors. And we're flexible on the treatment of property. We can buy the building, or do a sale-and-leaseback.

RF: Let’s talk about what happens after you've acquired a clinic. Having acquired a clinic from someone who’s 70 and has done things the same way for 45 years, how do you convince them to change? What are the biggest integration challenges?