Hi! As Mark Twain said, "didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead". Not 100% true, just want to make sure you are on top of what's happening + not to miss the great tools and insights (no sunshine today, keep building).

Just one note - we have one sponsor slot opening. Reach out for details, would love to welcome another great ecosystem player. First come, first served.

Note nr 2 -Tech Philomaths will look way different, thrilled to reveal soon.

work in progress

• AI hardware. "I want to invest in AI companies leveraging off the shelf hardware"– one VC got us thinking. That's exactly what Greï does, keen to hear more from them as they assemble the team for growth. EasyODM, looks like they do it more project-based. There is more hardware-saas-and not possibly AI plays in the Baltics, many leverage custom-built hardware (Aerones and Giraffe360 from Latvia), Aispeco, Monimoto, Fieldy (partnering with ElevenLabs), and more.
• MISHKAY Biotech (Pjaunu Gryba) opened a store in central Vilnius, they have also accelerated revenue to 1M last year.

• Fintech. Lightyear in Estonia indeed is hot – closes $23M Series B round, led by NordicNinja (+Superangel and Specialist VC). Zen.com, Polish scale-up that runs HQ from Vilnius with a small team... and grew from 8M revenue in 2021, to EUR 93M revenue and 28M gross profit. Reminder that Binance paid 100m+ in taxes since 2022. Tuum has announced a partnership with London-based payment processing platform Solidgate. Softloans partners with Luminor.
• Takes a village (to build a flourishing startup ecosystem). Zooming out of startups and investors, there are hugely impressive companies being built to support tech ecosystem. Our amazing supporters at Cloudvisor are at an impressive scale and speed of growth. GrowTech climbed to 1M in revenues. Edvin trippling revenues annualy with sales talent headhunting.
• Shopify ecosystem. Oberlo co-founder Justas reached 0.9M revenue with Essential Apps in 2024 (4 co-founders it seems), and is probably accelerating. Erikas from Kaching Appz got some strawberries. Omnisend has built a huge tech company supporting many Shopify merchants. Also building tool / apps: Matrixify, Sensible tools, ProfitKoala (by Kilo Health CTO), Analyzify.
• Trends. Is startup investment in Lithuania and Estonia accelerating? Yes and No, we explain.
• Space. After Nanoavionics exit, Linas Sargautis actively investing via Melius Futurum investment arm. Astrolight's HERMES has been named one of the winners of the 2024 CASSINI Challenges Product Track, receiving a €100,000 prize
• Formulating startup ideas? There is a disconnect between trending startup ideas online, and what is about to emerge in the next 6-12 months. If still thinking, consider talking to top VCs – ones that have a great dealflow/access and can synthesise themes. Reach out if you need an intro locally or with European funds.

• Elsewhere. Moldova will also emerge eventually – early access there via TechVillage, which is an exclusive event (50 startups+50 investors), September 5-7. In Latvia, founders are setting up Startup Mastermind – 6-8 founders, half-year long, working in sync to succeed.
• People. Grazvydas assumes Chief Strategy Officer role at NFQ. Aivaras leaves Elinta Charge. Marius steps up as VP, Network Operations & Infrastructure at CUJO AI.

sponsors

Cloudvisor [AWS partner dedicated to startups]
Hostinger [making online presence accessible to everyone worldwide, hiring]
Google For Startups [cloud credits up to $350K, expert support & faster growth]
Oxylabs [Step into the world of web data gathering]
VIALET [Business accounts for growth, hiring]
PayPal [Global integrated payments solution]
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]
Superangel [Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A for tech companies]

rounds and capital

• Lightyear – $23M Series B to help Europeans invest better. Led by NordicNinja, alongside Superangel and SpecialistVC, with continued support from Lightspeed, Metaplanet, Skaala and angels (including Bolt’s Markus Villig, and Wise’s Lars Trunin).
• Psylink raised EUR 500k pre-seed led by Coinvest Capital, with participation from FIRSTPICK, BSV Ventures, and a group of angel investors. Building biotech platform for sustainable production of plant- and fungi-derived compounds = new molecular candidates for mental health therapies.
• Munich-based Project Q, defence tech startup, secured EUR 7.5M in seed funding, led by Project A, with participation from Expeditions Fund and Superangel – which is emerging as an important defence backer in Europe.

three questions

• Modestas Mankus, Founder at Talks, Editor in Chief at Our Culture
• Tadas Norušaitis, CEO and Co-Founder, Pickitoo
• Chris Sidlauskas, Founder, sintra.ai
• Kasparas Jurgelionis, Founding Partner, Iron Wolf Capital
• Mikk-Plakk, Co-founder and CEO, Paul-Tech
• Gajus Kuizinas, Co-founder and CTO, Contra
• Miks Mikelsons, Co-founder and COO, Emmi AI

founder's guide

• This is how every startup funding announcement email (and pretty much any other PR outreach) should look like.
• PageRank in the Age of AI

Notice what disappears : the demand-side platform. No more advertisers optimizing for clicks. Just publishers competing to be the most useful source. The internet gets fewer ads, but every piece of content fights for attention in an auction measured in milliseconds.

• Tibo for indie hackers: You are doing marketing wrong
• Using AI help to post in LinkedIn? Don't mention linkedin to avoid cringe.
• How to get recommended by ChatGPT? Well, honestly, everyone is still trying to figure it out, we have only directional advice so far. As of now, Reddit seems to be important. Also, note that results vary a lot:

Josh compared 100,000 prompts across ChatGPT and Perplexity to see how much they overlap. Turns out, not by much. Only 11% of domain citations were shared between the platforms.

• You need to hire a Vibe Marketer (meaning good marketer) –

Traditional social media managers schedule posts and track metrics. Vibe marketers feel culture shift in real-time. They spot conversations three hours before they matter. They know exactly when corporate speak kills trust.

The best don't create viral moments. They ride them.

• Elad Gill wrote an interesting post about AI markets – what becomes more clear in terms of segments, winners, new opportunities

• The Return of Brand Marketing

further insights

• That famous “10,000 steps a day" goal? It didn’t come from science. It came from a Japanese marketing campaign in the 1960s. But a massive new study tracking over 160,000 people says you can see huge health benefits with just 7,000 steps, including lower risks of heart disease, cancer and dementia.
• "Does process matter? We are about to find out" – Ethan Mollick writes about AI agents.
• Project Europe first cohort, only six teams in Europe (none Baltics)

ecosystem

• When your country is hugely behind in terms of investing, backing startups is not a default path. It is a no-brainer to incentivise angel investors by reducing double-tax burden. Otherwise, capital will continue to flow for more airbnb units in Vilnius.
• Important interview about education and our tolerance with absurdity – with Dalius Misiunas (ISM).