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work in progress
Secured it. Blackwall, the Estonia-based firewall company has raised a $100 million Series C round at a $2.2 billion valuation. Yet another unicorn in Estonia!
And this may not stop here, as cybersecurity is getting new AI-powered boost. PHP vulnerability brought "millions of attempts” to exploit it, Aaron thinks tons of new AI jobs will be protecting the internet. Given everything is online — that also means bank account suddenly gets suspicious traffic (Estonians have been working on agent identity/authorization), and all kind of critical infrastructure will get attacks just as easily (and this is where Contrarian Ventures just backed Indurex). Also, companies and governments will be flooded with consumer complains and administrative requests, most are not ready.
As things gets messy, this may be another tailwind for Nord Security group, as well as the likes of CUBE AI (growing fast), ZioSec (Andrius Useckas co-founder), Amlyze, Salv, and others. Aurelijus just built DontBreak - goes through your checkout, signup and login every hour like a customer.
On a mission. Martin, Bolt Co-founder on a new mission: fighting tucking of blankets in hotels.
Lean yet mighty teams. InRento numbers: 8 people. 8 markets. €3M in revenue. €1M EBITDA (new pod with Bernardas). Flanco completely rebuilt whole app and experience.
Agents. ChatGPT found a really good market — leading with agentic tool usage (report)
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Defence. Founded by Ragnar Sass, Pipedrive co-founder, Darkstar is officially a €25M pre-seed and seed fund based in Estonia. Mainline was testing from Nuclear Bunker. Defence Builder Accelerator applications open. RSI Europe and Odin Defence have been selected for €29.5 million in EU funding. DBOX, together with Drone Nerds, introduced Evolver DFR - Drone as First Responder.
Monopulse raised over EUR 2M in funding; it's well positioned as Europe needs defence tech sovereignty: Falcon MK3S drone is manufactured exclusively in countries friendly to LT, ensuring the security and resilience of the company’s supply chain. It designs and manufactures all major components in-house.
Vinted’s Report Card (is wild). Ten months after Vinted properly reopened its U.S. app, it’s gaining traction. Per Consumer Edge credit and debit card data, Vinted took 7%+ of U.S. consignment and thrift spending in Q3, up from 1% in Q2 and ~0.2% in January. Vinted is taking US by storm. The work now is in building the same infrastructure in a larger, more fragmented and more competitive U.S. market.
People moves. After 10 yrs at Capco, Ervinas joins Hostinger as Chief of Staff. Agne Selemonaite is ready for a new venture. Karina is now Finance Partner at Ondato. Former Deputy Mayor of Tallinn joins StreetVision as co-founder (in Estonia startup >> public policy revolving door is working smooth). Vytautas is now CPO at EnforceShield (hiring). Zlata is now Execution Leader in Operations at BADideas fund. Kätlin-Carolin Noormägi takes over as Managing Director of EstBAN, while Jana Saastamoinen moves on to lead the Estonian Founders Society. Agne is now Head of Comms at Innovation Agency. Kipras Pauliukonis took over as CEO of smeGo. Akvile moves back to London, joins Pleo.
Female builders. Reports and enthusiasm from Vienarages in AI, hackathon for female founders - well done. All builders: Kilo Speakeasy - apply to join the event for conversations with builders sharing their stories, Oct 28th.
Community. The courtyard of the former Lelija garment factory comes back to life as Tech Zity Vilnius opens its first phase. Unicorns’ Christmas. Invitation to all (families welcome) - evening will include a tree lighting, a Christmas choir, a Christmas market, and workshops for the whole family. Hot drinks and snacks. December 3rd, 17h.
rounds and capital
Blackwall raised a $100 million Series C round at a $2.2 billion valuation. The round was led by AVP, who join existing investors Dawn Capital, MMC Ventures and Tallinn-based Tera Ventures.
Contrarian Ventures led Indurex’s €7M funding round, with participation from Axeleo Capital and Curiosity VC.
Monopulse, Danish-Lithuanian unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturer has raised over €2 million, led by Coinvest Capital, with NGL Ventures, LitBAN angels, and Plug and Play Ventures.
Entrepreneurship via acquisition: two french founders of ScrappingBee - Kevin and Pierre - exited to Oxylabs last year, and now acquiring themselves.
TP Recommends
Proof that good things don’t have to be expensive.
This week we asked people in Baltic tech for their best recent purchase under €100. The answers range from a book on designing public spaces to a billboard ad in Times Square.
Guoda Taraškevičiūtė , Practica Capital
A book on building spaces that foster connectedness between individuals, as recommended in an essay by Blackbird VC's portfolio program lead. Taps into both my work and personal interests.
”Strangers Need Strange Moments Together: Designing Interaction for Public Spaces”
Saulius Cesnulevicius, Ovoko
Recent? If not too recent then it was this $40 ad at Times Square. Team was not online so I've put sweatshirt image instead.
Marija Rucevska, Outlast Fund
If below 100 then it must be either wetsuit (discounted) or a Shakeshack burger 😃
Indrė Viltrakytė, Tingit
Best recent thing I got was an Instinct invite (I have a few if anyone needs)- a personal assistant on Whatsapp that does things for you- and it works like magic.
Arūnė Kolodzeiskė, Hostinger
I recently bought the Topologie phone strap adapter. It’s very practical: it turns my own phone case into a crossbody, so my hands are free. Especially when I don’t have pockets and nowhere to put my phone.
roleplay
Nord Security - CRO Manager, Affiliate Marketing Manager
Eneba - Head of Finance, CS Team lead
Ovoko - Head of Customer Operation, Engineering Manager
Oxylabs - Account Management Team Lead, Engineering manager
Eldorado - Lifecycle Marketing Lead, Product Designer
Hostinger - Chief Revenue & Analytics Officer
Surfshark - Engineering Manager
VIALET - Underwriting Team Lead, KAM
Vinted - Senior Corporate Development Analyst
FK Zalgiris - Product Owner, CRM
Coingate - GTM Ops Lead
brand + design
Chief Design Officer of Lithuania? The US launched America.gov, built under Joe Gebbia (Airbnb co-founder, now U.S. Chief Design Officer), Marco Rubio presented the new US passport Apple-keynote style. Customer expectations travel - now even to governments. And the state is the one product every citizen has to use.
An idea: Tour of duty. What if scale-ups lent senior people - a year on loan to the government institution work, part of the salary covered by the company, seat kept warm, the way companies already treat colleagues called up for military service?
Strategy vs Execution. A lesson to be learned. This Apple ad made 15 years ago is perfect advertisiment for ChatGPT, Muse, or Instinct today.
further insights
Life and dishwasher hack. If you rinse off your dishes before loading them into the dishwasher, they come out less clean.
Life hack 2. Elena Verna is "not doing 996” or did she spend too much time in Stockholm with Lovable?
Automation and Leisure. Magnus’ insights on what what AI might bring in terms of productivity and free time.
How China became rich - read on industrial policy. “China’s mayors and provincial governors turn their cities into venture capital portfolios because of the system of incentives in which they operate. Each cadre (the party members and other officials who run the Chinese state) is scored by their superiors in a secret file built up over the course of their career.“
ecosystem
Legal docs. Hugely valuable initiative in Estonia — another edition (already fourth) of standard legal documents, freely available for startup founders. Great way of paying forward - advancing ecosystem.
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