work in progress
Founder mode. Not sure what are reasons behind, but both Pulsetto and Vugene are back in the Founder’s hands - hired CEOs stepped down.
Media, bigger jungle. Bored Panda is amazing in re-inventing itself. 17 years as LT’s top media export: a listicle factory that NYT once profiled as 41 people who took over your Facebook feed, now 420 strong and, since September 1, Bored Panda Group. Three divisions - editorial, Bored Panda Studios (video), and Spike.
Oct 12 Spike, a preschool dragon, becomes the first LT animated series on Netflix (Latvia had Oscar-winning Flow, film before). Spike achieved Bored Panda way: a billion views on YT already. Sequence typically is that YT is the lab, Netflix to validate IP, and then toys, apparel and a books carry the margin. Interview with Tomas.
Payments, fintech. While we keep our eyes super close to the likes of Rizon, Creem or Axiology, and watch Vialet growing, Noah emerges in London with Vilnius team, and $38M seed (existing investors added 16M as revenue grew 500%). Evelina and Olga are CCO and COO there, as well as broader Vilnius team on ops / compliance. A business plugs into Noah through an API, the money moves as stablecoins, then lands in the local payment system on the other side.
Rare earth, connections. In another LT link, Solcoa Industries announced $75M to build the first commercial rare earth metallization plant ($45M in equity led by Bain Capital, plus $30M debt by J.P. Morgan) - Laurynas is Chief of Staff at the founding team there.
Internet infra is on high demand and Baltics are there crushing. Hostinger reached 10M domains under management - top 5 domain registrars globally! Following Trump’s intelligence, there is even 5k .si domains bought a day. Also, while nobody noticed... IPXO grew 60% last year and hit $31.2M in revenue.
Products worth building (and backing). Should VCs just give up? Lots of memes lately on what’s still investible. But as we know, the most important companies for long term, are typically not the ones “hot” right now. Even Anthrophic was launched 2021, OpenAI lab - 2015. At the hype of Crypto, Anduril, Ramp, others got started (Sequoia chart). Or another point — “at Lux, every year for a number of years, we'd each write down the top five companies in our portfolio we thought would be the biggest fund returners”. Be brave, capitalists. We know some exciting deeptech updates are about to surface.
In sports, fun times! Žalgiris Group and Tesonet, launches Confluence Valley – a sports infrastructure accelerator, led by Paulius Motiejunas. And on the back of Zalgiris experience, they are releasing first product - Edney AI, AI-powered platform built for the day-to-day operations of professional basketball clubs. Consistently growing Walk15, Vlada is proud to introduce her teacher parents - funny that Harry (20VC) recently tweeted - “most impressive founders I meet is that their parents are university lecturers/professors”. Footy labs closed €450k pre-seed.
People moves. Ex-Index, Co-lead of EU-INC, Vojtec is joining Tesonet as Chief Communications Officer. Oskaras joins Ovoko as Director for Product Design. Thomas, with true French lastname, is joining Contrarian Ventures as investor. After nine years in Canada, Tautvydas returns to LT and joins Longevity Lab. Hans joins Eneba as Head of Risk and Fraud (Eneba is after multiple senior hires rn). Mart is now Head of Finance at Frankenburg. Andrius joins Artea as Head of Digital Products. Aurelija is Head of Product and Growth at Oxylabs. Augustas is new Principal Engineer at Holo. Joris joins Delta biosciences. Vilte is now CMO at OMG World. Mikolaj joins Inovo VC for consumer investing. After 3yrs at Vinted Strategy, Sebastien joins Wallapop as COO. Isa joined Vendep Capital.
Holo-istic. Is Holo real thing or vibes DJs and stuff? Will learn next week with their reveal. New gen founders are somewhat different from OG founders in LT.
Personal finance. Spreadsheety stuff can be more fun with AI. Bilance is ramping momentum. Danielius built Inframe to have complete personal finance picture in one place.
Two events. Matrix OS and condense.chat are running a Hackathon October 23, go. Unfair Weekend at ISM Nov 12-15 for students (apply bef Oct 28)
Letters. Why this letter arrives only once a week, always.
rounds and capital
Estonian Golbriak Space raised €4M to mass-produce laser communication terminals. Join Capital + PhotonVentures.
Estonian-Ukrainian DOD Solution has raised $2.1M pre-seed to scale onboard autonomy platform for unmanned systems.
M-Fly – again Estonia-Ukraine team making gimbals for drones has raised money to expand production of its hardware - details not disclosed.
Footy labs closed €450k pre-seed round by Plug and Play, Orion Securities and several angel investors.
TP recommends
A new series where we ask people in tech about the stuff they love and use every day. No right answers, just good recommendations.
Antanas Bakšys, Ace Waves
Brand: Rose, model - Backroad. All three founders at Ace Waves are Rose fans and ride Backroads
Pijus Makarevičius, Furniture1
Currently riding 700 eur polish Kross gravel, didnt try or think about others - like this one
Mantas Staliūnas, VIALET
Groad, Scott bikes because of the people selling them
Povilas Grigas, Fieldy
As with many things in life, the objects i want dont exist, so i tend to build a lot of things myself. I have a custom-made titanium single-speed track bike that weights 6kg and I’m in love with it:)
Gustas Germanavičius, InRento
At 2 meters tall, my bike options are pretty limited! But when it comes to road bikes, BMC is my favourite, while Canyon is my top pick for time trial (TT) bikes.
roleplay
Eldorado - Lifecycle Marketing Lead and Product Owner
Ovoko - Head of Customer Operations
Hostinger - Chief Revenue & Analytics Officer, Google Ads Team Lead
Eneba - Head of Finance, CS Team lead
Oxylabs - Account Management Team Lead, Engineering manager
Surfshark - Brand Strategist, Head of Lifecycle
VIALET - Chief Accountant, KAM
Unicorns Lithuania - Ecosystem Growth Lead
IPRoyal - Chief People Officer
Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence - Developers, analysts
Valkyrie Dynamics - six founding roles
Copla - BDM
boredpanda.com - CEO
brand + design
Took it personally. Contra Labs (co-founded by Lithuanian Gajus Kuizinas) surveyed 150k+ creatives for Creative Intelligence 2026, then designed the report like a film.
further insights
Better tech always win. “The "EV slowdown" narrative continues to collide with reality: Global car sales fell 5% in H1 2026, yet EV sales grew in more than 90 countries and EV share rose to 24%”
ecosystem
Process is just as important as rules / laws, and you can progress a lot by insisting on speedy actions - Rimantas brings important note where leverage for efficient bureacracy is.
.jpg)
.jpg)