work in progress

Ex-Oxylabs and new founders. In new Sifted interview, Vytautas and Jurgis talk about growth as #1 priority (triple digit percentage!), mention logos (including "LLM Powerhouses”) and considers IPO after few years as an option. They did not explain though why Teso firms are only allowed at raise rounds at 3B+ valuations! (and why nexos.ai was an exception).

On that note, here are 12 builders, ex-Oxylabs, all touched by a unicorn

Paulius Taraškevičius - Co-founder and CEO, Whitebridge, Co-founder Antibridge
Nerijus Šiaulys - Co-Founder & CTO, Inbalance grid
Lauris Lietavietis - Co-founder and COO, Desktop Commander
Tadas Gedgaudas - Founder, TopYappers and Co-founder, AppKitie
Povilas Lapienis - Co-Founder & CEO, Hezzy
Rytis Ulys - Founder, Asomify
Utku Zihnioglu, Natsuki Zihnioglu, Co-founders, Oneprofile
Matas Kibildis - Co-Founder & Head of Growth, aiclicks.io
Germanas Latvaitis - CTO RatePunk, Co-founder, EcomScout
Ąžuolas Endriukaitis - Founder - vetros.dev
Itunu Samuel A. - Co-founder, Abby
Mante Kolakauske - Co-Founder and CGO, Better Market

Issue and treatment. After learning how much AI can help gather about a person online and vast digital footprints - WhiteBridge generates deep reports on individuals - the team launches AntiBridge, data removal product.

Extraordinary. Human Fall Flat - 10th Anniversary Documentary - among top 20 best-selling games in the world with over 60M copies sold. Tomas Sakalauskas just gave it a go.

Agent or human? Identity tooling has a lot of tailwinds - both AI related, but also increasingly financials services, betting, gaming, and other vices. Veriff, Estonian unicorn is tracking somewhere 100M+ ARR range, valued 1.5B at last round, over $200M raised, around 500+ people worldwide - very impressive. Ondato made the biggest jump - 70% revenue growth to 12.6M, with 2.6M EBITDA. Idenfy profitable for some time, tracking above 5M ARR.

Passion plays. When we listed Weird Takes = Strong Moats, among hardware enabled business few are serving users with passions. Pando Moto did not seem like tech company, but they learned to become one.

AI entrepreneurs. Polsia went viral for "automating company building”, now Supernaut can do the same - some examples are impressive (start generating leads for local businesses). Hostinger is crushing with scale - their email marketing product Reach hits 300k users.

Edtech. Not exactly sure how Memby pivoted - looks like some work in Africa - but closed 2025 with almost EUR 4M revenue and profits. Alpa Kids in Estonia growing, still early though. Corepetitus hiring Head of Marketing.

Defence. Origin Robotics with "insane traction” — Agris returned to drones just in time. Broswarm adds another EUR 400k+ investment from NGL syndicate. UDS introducing and testing new features. Lithuania is backing five defence and security projects with €8.88M. Xato has been accepted into ruum. Monopulse in production.

Thirsty with this heat, so what is the emerging brand that will become largest in the drinks category? Vote for OMG Bubble Tea - Brite - Cannumo - Other. There is pattern already.

Network with network people. September 23-24 in Riga, BalticNOG will bring 400+ network professionals, engineers, and decision-makers.

rounds and capital

Defense tech startup BROSWARM secures EUR 409k from NGL Ventures 61 angel syndicate.

Outfunnel has been acquired by Pipedrive - Estonian inside baseball happening, great to see this product finding new (natural) home.

Your.online acquired zone.eu - Estonian hosting/domain player.

summer editorial

Given it's the summer, you may benefit from some personal reflections on life. Two sets, different experiences.

I.

• Reading and writing are becoming as important for staying in mental shape as going to the gym is for physical fitness
• New favourite habit: Taking a walk without any input
• People radically underestimate how much they know that other people do not, and the benefits of publishing it
• Summer book recs: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman and Trust by Hernan Diaz
• Achievement unlocked: Got married

II.

• Patrick Radden Keefe - London Falling - absolutely great book
• Happened to be for holidays where mostly locals go - small towns and beaches, not hearing English - makes so much more of an experience
• Just a year since we moved back from Scandinavia, wife got a gravel bike already (used city bikes before)
• Everyone should benefit from shorter school holidays
• Dalí Theatre-Museum - where he lived, built as museum, and is buried in a crypt - remarkable for visit

brand + design

Fun & Delight. Great to see people exploring AI use cases in creative ways - like Živilė (ex-Trafi, TransferGo, Hostinger) creating her own mini-tools.

Reminded me that Apple named grug, a hand-drawn “daily-wisdom” app made by Ocho (two-person design studio in the Netherlands) its 2026 Apple Design Award winner for Fun & Delight. Probably the first Apple Design Award winner built by two designers using Codex to write the code.

“People like us can build the fun little things. People like us can ship the crazy ideas. People like us can make unreasonable little things and see if the world cares.”

Go and make the weird thing. The right people will find it.

”Make the logo bigger” Curious to see what producing top-tier creative work actually looks like? Here’s a sneak peek.

founder's guide

The State of B2B Marketing - what companies are actually doing
An opinionated guide to which AI to use to do stuff

further insights

Much has been said about latest Airtable acquisition by Bending Spoons (headline is that today 20% growth for PLG SaaS dictates 2.7x revenue multiple). But Matt Levine offers an interesting angle: Bending Spoons is type of "private equity style prestige laundering” - you get outcomes by attracting smartest people reinventing unsexy businesses that they otherwise not touch (FYI, previous Bending acq was AOL).

Kieran spends two months in Germany to about Mittelstand - what he learned from factories across Germany

No easy days for Sam Altman - gives a strong interview at Invest Like The Best (everyone, oh look - TBPN training) but then tweets how to run AI-podcast for the children instead of talking to them

Travelers starting to give up on summer in Western Europe and demand for European vacations in historically cooler climates is on the rise as the summer of extreme heat persists

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