We are ready, 2023

work in progress

• Marching ahead. There will be more stories like this - when difficult to raise capital, turn to grow revenue and get profitable instead. Impressive tracks and interesting reflections by Frontu team, as well as Ocoya.
• Everyday products. Eimantas from Trafi built Trinka.lt - an app for your loyalty cards. Beera Station, a self-pouring beer machine provider, has teamed with Lithuanian iDenfy to check buyers' ages and verify their identities. Mantas and Milda now distribute La Plantation peppers in LT.
• Trends. A bit less of thought leadership for 2023 as many not sure what to expect? Pinterest Predicts capture trends already happening. Small World looks at wild cards (sudden bull market? covid again? tipping point in climate? Eurasian spring?). 9 tech predictions by Scott Belsky. AI predicted fashion trends for 2023.
• Moves. Viktorija, CEO at CoInvest Capital, is leaving the fund - thank you for your important contribution.
• Games. Combination of work and some luck - suddenly we have a sizeable gaming industry, boosted by relocations. Counting 2500 people employed, 89 companies, 30% annual growth, and hundreds of millions in revenue. List of gaming companies here, and look - some studios are getting into board games, too!

rounds and capital

• EIT Urban Mobility joins the crowd to gather EUR 600k in total for Walk15, which closed the round last days of 2022. Other investors include 70V, business angels, and Business Angels Fund II. Besides making the whole world walk much more, the startup is targeting EUR 1m next year to expand into Germany.
• Aerones, a Latvian robotics startup (Change Ventures portfolio) raised $ 38,9 m series A - details on investors pending. Impressive traction and illustration of the power of something that looks like niche market - until it isn't.
• Orion Securities distributed Paysera bonds, totalling EUR 1,5 m.
• Erikas and Donatas sold a Shopify app after building it for two years. His indie hacker reflection (in LT) is in this post, the deal value was in six digits.
• Prague-based Presto Ventures (GoRamp, Okredo, Redtrack) planning 15 more rounds this year, as well as their fund III - the "biggest and baddest".
• European Space Agency establishes Incubator in LT, and appoints Visoriai Tech Park. The incubator will select 25  space startups which will have access to technical and consultancy support, and also will receive EUR 50,000 in funding.

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roleplay

founder guide

• Angel Investor OS if you are ready for notion (template)
• What’s the Second Job of a Startup CEO?

insights

• Interesting Mike's thread of living in Estonia as an expat
• An indicator that WFH is permanent: public transit journeys stabilizing at 35% below 2019 levels.

things planetary

• Smart meter rollout in Europe - and thanks but no thanks in Lithuania
• Contrarian Ventures further fueling energy transition - closing 2022 with impressive outcomes on the tiny first fund.

ecosystem

• New financing grants for early-stage ventures - for those brave enough to dive deeper seeing list of related documents and regulations. Getting this bureaucracy out is pretty critical.