Against Consensus
X and LinkedIn for updates
Jobs at early-stage Baltic startups - here
Newsletter is invite-only (1 invite for 2024) - philomaths.tech
Sponsors and Contribee subscribers have more invites+other benefits
Your friends, uncle and neighbour are supporting already
Join us!
work in progress
- Industry. Last week we learned that Estonia was #1, Lithuania #2 in CEE for venture capital raised – and we are talking totals here, not even per capita. It is pretty significant. Change Ventures and FIRSTPICK found more EUR in data, with totals 2023 being:
- What is startups as an industry, in LT? Total headount did not change in 2023 (17,600 in tech firms), salaries increased 8% to EUR 3,800 on average, and total EUR 372M in taxes have been paid (+23%). Pretty awesome.
- Comparing to Estonia* Similar talent pool there – 17,400, but notable one third "or 4,988 employees are foreigners, of whom 82% came to Estonia from outside the EU". Taxes - no data yet. Average gross salary - EUR 4,253 (in Estonia gross does not include social security, so it's higher, around EUR 3,279 net). Largest teams are Wise (1900), Bolt (1300), Playtech (644), Pipedrive (418), Veriff (259).
*this is taking data from two different sources, there might be nuances in definitions and data, etc. Consume with caution.
- Mobility. It's true - electric bikes actually give more exercise than pedal bikes. BURBI is sort of Waze for bicycle riders, but android only?
Talking bigger vehicles, CarVertical launches an app for car owners. FairFix is another app with service stations. Lectrium expanding step by step, dealer by dealer, in the US. UniPark app integrates Inbalance charging. Trace.Space helps Rimac build supercars. How RhinoRacing RR01 supercar got started two years ago (request a test ride).
More automotive: Ethiopia set to become first country to ban internal combustion cars. There are serious concerns about brute force of Chinese EVs crushing Western automotive brands - BYD literally bought purpose-built cargo ships to bring them to Europe. Understand h0w this Chinese industrial policy works - wasteful, but super difficult to counter.
- Marketplaces. Gajus (co-founder and CTO) and Contra team did not stop - have built an impressive scale (20,000 customers) already. Augustinas and the team launches Illu - digital illustration marketplace. Estonian Trind Ventures invested in Mjuk from Finland - imagine Vinted but for furniture.
Starting a list of Baltic marketplace startups - need your help what to add?
