karolina pelc
from startup launch to acquisition in 3 years
Karolina Plec, Founder/CEO BeyondPlay
Karolina Pelc, Founder and CEO of BeyondPlay, began her startup journey in the middle of 2021’s Covid, before successfully selling her company by early 2024 to American gaming giant FanDuel. Karolina has since then committed to the impact space, including building girls’ dormitories at a school in Uganda. Winning Venture Studio acted as an Advisor from the earliest stages of the company, and the founder’s journey.
As a Polish immigrant in London, Karolina already had the determination to create her own path and dream bigger. She had grown up in the outskirts of Poland before funding herself through university by working on a cruise ship. After moving to London, she knew she had to find a job straight away to be able to stay in the country and make it work. It was while working her way up through gaming companies, that she had the idea to build her own socially responsible gaming platform.
The data on immigrant founders is clear: in the US, 55% of tech unicorns are founded by immigrants. In Europe, Winning Venture Studios also works with VC firm No Label Ventures, whose thesis is that within the next 10 years in countries like Germany, France and the UK - 2 out of every 3 unicorns will be built by immigrants.
Immigrants On Top
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For Karolina who had left everything behind in her native Poland to start again in the UK, building her own company was the dream. Her first step was the vision that she wanted to create socially responsible gaming, to transform solitary gaming sessions into a social community when players shared their experiences with each other. Not knowing where to start, she began teaching herself about tech, and also learning about fundraising for your own startup.
And it paid off. In her first year, she was able to leave her job, raise her seed round and build out a multi disciplinary tech team, all aligned to the same vision.
“My story hopefully says to women in the gaming and tech sectors, ‘Look, you can do it!’ I would never cast myself as a ‘role model’ but if a young female – or any woman – in business reads about my work and, because of it, starts her own company, or backs herself, then I am happy to be described as one.”
Creating the Vision
All founders have challenges but as a young mother too, Karolina felt she had to prove herself even more. She focused on juggling her business and family responsibilities - with an unrelenting determination to make the company succeed, despite any ups and downs. Three short years later, with a very successful acquisition, Pelc is once again looking ahead. Spending more time at her new company’s HQ in New York, she is also active in the founder community, supporting other entrepreneurs in building their own dreams and ambitions.
CEO and Mother