7 (out of 10)

work in progress

• Re-ve-nu-e 2021. Our little startups growing up? Vinted EUR 245m, Kilo Health EUR 100m+, Nordcurrent, EUR 62m and expecting 110m this year. Also there is Nord Security, some more hundreds for sure.
• Travel is back? At least it wanted to get back (right before we got a call from inflation). In the recent Adapt to Endure (aka survive the crisis), Sequoia refers to AirBnB - how they handled covid and came out much stronger. In this vertical we've got Ratepunk (#18 on App Store UK, #20 USA), Eddy AI B2B platform (growing with Visit Dubai, LT airports and other customers), GlobeTrott Travel, which has been selected to participate in the Madeira Startup Retreat, Tinggly has been giving stories (not stuff) since 2014, and Hoperfy is actively fundraising.
• Events. Raimonds (with BADideas) compares Baltic startup events and we need your vote (if you have been to all three, ever?). Clearly no shortage of events in the region - but what if we had Baltijos Slušas instead?? Also, check these quick interviews at Startup Fair from Arunas+Martynas.

rounds and capital

• Contrarian Ventures took part at BeZero £2m seed round (led by Illuminate Financial), and it was quickly followed by £15m Series A (led by Molten Ventures, with Norrsken VC and Extantia participating).
• Stebby, wellness service marketplace, has been acquired via management buy-out by the existing executives of Stebby and Livonia Partners.
• Capitalia (LV) investing into Bolt via secondary, and Lithuanians of course considering a new fund. We have Siena and Nordic Secondary active in Baltics
• Funderbeam launched in Lithuania last week, Poklet still fundraising
• EBAN awards LitBAN for 5X growth (congrats!). Go 5X again in 2022.
• Summary on venture trends (including Lithuania) from Audrius Milukas (OCC)

roleplay

founder guide

• SaaS Benchmarks Report from ChartMogul
• Critical entrepreneur tools from Karolis, including Netflix & IMDb integration
• If You Want to Get Funded – Make It Easy On Them

insights

• Social movements, like #metoo create change - in reported crimes, even a rise in performance.
• Zinc (in UK) is another talent accelerator, with tech-for-good focus ("those individuals are 10 to 20 years into their career but are frustrated that they are not having the social impact they want")
• AWS for Industry, But Better: The Railroad Investment Case (the Diff)

how are we doing?

• Readers open TP letters with remarkable consistency (see below). We are privileged to be connected to this amazing community - most venture investors and top startup executives in Lithuania. We recently ran a survey, and it is super interesting what people think about the content we do. Thank you all for contributing!

However, Tech Philomaths is free, ad-supported newsletter. We need your help to keep this going & growing:

• Book sponsored post (50-70 words + photo) in an upcoming issue
• Share your job opening - (free for early-stage startups) - email us for details
• Share these letters with your team, friends, cousin in Australia, others...

Have a lovely weekend! DMs always open.