The European Investment Bank has agreed to lend Poland’s online marketplace Allegro 1 billion zloty (PLN 1 billion) to fund research, development and innovation focused on artificial intelligence and e-commerce technology.
The long-term financing is part of the EIB Group’s TechEU initiative, which the bank said is intended to support €250 billion of new investment in Europe by 2027 across technologies including AI, clean tech and quantum computing, the bank said in a statement on Monday.
The loan will cover nearly 40% of Allegro’s planned spending on research, development and innovation in the coming years, with the company planning an AI-driven digital marketplace alongside upgrades to delivery and customer service.
EIB vice-president Marko Primorac said the financing was designed to expand Allegro’s ability to pursue technological innovation, including in AI, and support its scaling in the region.
Allegro chief executive Marcin Kuśmierz said the funding would support investment in advanced technologies and would be used in areas including personnel costs for software engineers, data scientists and AI specialists.
Allegro’s scale and EIB’s first partnership with the company
Allegro controls about a third of the Polish e-commerce market and is expanding in Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary, the bank said.
The EIB loan is Allegro’s first agreement of this kind with a multilateral financial institution.
The deal is the EIB Group’s largest private-sector corporate research and development programme backed in Poland.
