Mikołaj Kunica, editor -in -chief of Business Insider Polska: It's hard to start our conversation differently. I have to ask what in your opinion the influence of the new customs policy of Donald Trump's administration on the global, including the Polish economy and the future of trade, in particular in digital space?
Tomasz Czechowicz, CEO MCI Capital: We observe the movement of capital from the United States to Europe of other regions of the world. American companies and corporations begin to feel worse in the inner market. This is not just a matter of customs. The high variability of decisions is disturbed and business likes stabilization and predictability. In the US it got too dynamic, so I think the capital will be pushed out of the United Statesand corporations will develop through expansion in Europe and Asia.
Of course, this raises opportunities for these markets. Anyway, we can already see it on the stock exchanges. Apart from the last weeks of spectacular bursts and violent growth, the Polish stock exchange was in the first quarter of 2025 the best market in the world.
Do you think we are observing the period of transitional turbulence of the Trump era, or will the world never be so globalized? To paraphrase the theory of inverted Nixon, I will ask if the scenario of inverted Fukuyama is materialized?
Personally, I expect everything to clarify and we have to wait a while for it.
Let's talk about your business, which in part of the investment portfolio focuses on trade, e-commerce in particular. By the way, I wonder if you go to classic, off-line shopping?
I don't like shopping. I only go to the grocery store if I'm in some interesting place. In addition, I hate “physical” shopping. I don't visit shopping malls. I am also not a supporter of super expensive brands.
The MCI fund has long been interested in the e-commerce market. In Poland, it historically grew at a rate of about 20 percent. annually. How do you assess its further potential in Poland and our region of Europe?
E-commerce will definitely be the fastest growing part of trade. Economic growth in Central and Eastern Europe will be higher than in Western Europe. The region should develop well, the consumer will get rich. Therefore, I expect e-commerce to grow within 5-10 percent. year on year.
You have invested in the IAI group, which provides the Marketplace Idosell tool-it is the largest Polish platform offering a full cross-section of solutions for e-commerce. How is this asset in your wallet?
EBITDA increased almost six times in six years of purchase. All this is the effect of organic development without acquisition activities. Our solution offers everything that is necessary to conduct e-commerce in the outsourcing model.
IAI provides a shop platform that It is able to handle any merchant up to EUR 100 million, i.e. in practice 99 percent. sellers. We are focused more on the so -called migrating merchant, i.e. the player who has already grown, sells on the Internet through his own store, and now he is looking for more mature solutions with a larger palette of functionality, such as payments, logistics, marketing, i.e. generation of leads, etc. What additionally distinguishes us to facilitate online stores to develop sales abroad.
What activities in this business are the most difficult, acquiring new or maintaining existing customers?
IAI loses customers a year who generate only 2 percent. The company's revenues and this is the lowest indicator in the industry, so we are very proud of it. Why are they going away? As a rule, this is due to the fact that a given store closes or has grown so that it creates its own solution. For example, this was the case with CCC. IAI also boasts that he serves a great orchestra of Christmas Charity. This is a very difficult shop. It sells very little throughout the year, and then in one day you need to handle millions of orders, which is a very big challenge.
Looking to the future, how the development of Aga (generative artificial intelligence) will change, allow you to scale the best entities operating in e-commerce, and in which it will set the bar so high that they will not be able to overcome it?
This will mainly apply to innovation in the Go-to-Market sphere, i.e. generating leads. And can generate content that will improve the path of reaching the client. On the other hand, it is not like AI from the machine will put the whole store for Merchant. It can accelerate implementation.
You were wondering because I wonder if the change in Google's policy, including AI Overview browser tests, will not cut smaller, weaker merchants from the market?
Contrary, From Google's perspective, the more crushed the market, the better. Then he can generate the highest dream at his services. In fact, Google's competitors are Amazon or Allegro who have regular, returning customers. Google's business focuses on small, medium and large sellers, because it can earn on them because it is a really large tool when it comes to traffic generation.
What are the strategic options for IAI?
I believe that the progressive globifal globify, like Amazon's time for the e-commerce market, will accelerate the consolidation of the e-commerce platform market in the CEE region and all of Europe or their specialization in individual segments. It means that This region will create its own main platform And this is the first scenario for IAI. The second is segmentation, specialization in this market, i.e. smaller merchants on less advanced platforms, larger shelf above. Similarly to the segmentation of ERP services (tools for company resource management – ed.), Where, next to the global SAP, regional suppliers of these services operate. These are two possible scenarios.
The IAI Group has already been in the MCI portfolio for over six years. This is quite a mature asset. The question is, is it ready for sale?
Yes. She expanded EBITDA almost six times and practically fully repaid the debt taken into this acquisition and subsequent acquisitions.
How do you assess the role of the Warsaw Stock Exchange as a potential place to develop in this context by creating conditions for exits for the private equity industry?
Warsaw Mature Exchange. Recently, we have been dealing with two successful debuts, i.e. frogs and diagnostics. Both entities were supported by private equity funds. Large and very large companies enter the stock exchange, which generate strong streams of cash. It should be like that.
The Warsaw market is a good place for this type of entity, with revenues below, say, half a billion, for more growth companies and from half a billion and up for more mature, paying dividends. I also think – and here we return to the beginning of our conversation – that the WSE will be revived by the state of capital from the United States. We also look at the stock exchange as a script may not be full of disinfection, but to scale assets in a longer time horizon.
