 The company's logo since 2014 | |
| Industry | E-commerce andmass media |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1995; 30 years ago (1995) inGdańsk,Poland |
| Founders | Marek Borzestowski and Leszek Bogdanowicz |
| Headquarters | , |
| Owner | Grupa o2 (100% shareholder) |
| Website | wp |
Wirtualna Polska (WP[vuˈpɛ];lit. 'Virtual Poland') is aPolish company involved in manymass media ande-commerce enterprises.
The two founders of the portal,Marek Borzestowski [pl] and Leszek Bogdanowicz, created it whilst inGermany in 1995. Initially namedWirtualna Akademia, it was aweb directory. It was later renamed toWirtualna Polska and soon gained a stable headquarters inGdańsk. Borzestowski sold his shares to other investors in 2005, and the company has grown significantly since then;[1] itse-mail service, Poczta WP, was established in November 1998 and has since become extremely popular.[2]
In 2014,Orange Polska sold all shares of Wirtualna Polska to Grupa o2, another mass media company, for 375 millionzł. The purchase was funded by theprivate equity firm Innova Capital.[3][4] From March 2018 to August 2024, Wirtualna Polska's owner was Joanna Pawlak.[5] She was succeeded by Jacek Świderski, the owner of Wirtualna Polska'sholding company.[6]
On 16 November 2020,Marcin Meller became theeditor-in-chief of Wirtualna Polska,[7] a position left vacant by the departingTomasz Machała [pl] after a scandal in February 2020.[8] On 4 December, Meller also left the role and was replaced byPiotr Mieśnik [pl].[9] On 1 March 2023, he was in turn replaced byPaweł Kapusta [pl].[10]
In January 2020, theinvestigative journalism portalOKO.press published an article detailing the alleged collaboration of Wirtualna Polska with theMinistry of Justice, primarily by censoring material criticizingZbigniew Ziobro and writing articles expressing support for the ministry under false surnames.[11] The aforementioned editor-in-chief, Tomasz Machała, was forced to resign following an internal investigation.[8] Machała then made several negative comments about Wirtualna Polska and stated that only 1% of its revenue came fromadvertising.[12]