work in progress
Big ambition, in a small city. As tech ecosystem keeps ramping up, we look back at the place where this happens. Another reminder of “Triumph of the City” - Glaeser’s book, where he did wonderful job to explain the relationship between new economy and the city. Covid, remote work, automation, AI, work from anywhere — and yet somehow world is driven by handful top cities. Why?
As Baltic tech champions are becoming global leaders, top brands worldwide — Vilnius is in danger of falling behind in some ways. Some critical pieces - commuting network, airport and flight connectivity, broader cultural scene is running behind the world-class brands like Vinted, Nord, Hostinger represent. Note - these are also consumer brands, they are cultural artifacts, from Barcelona to Mumbai to NYC. Expectations are on the same level.
Therefore local discourse feels like a drag. Who even has a vision about Vilnius airport being 3x the size, among top experiences in Northern Europe? Who has a ambition to radically rethink transportation in the city? What are most ambitious ideas in education, who is voicing them? Who is building Europe’s most advanced defence capabilities? Need to think much bigger, as a country and as a city.
Top guns. Skeleton Technologies is now a new Estonian unicorn, valued at more than $1 billion after an investment round led by Siemens. Tartu should be proud, huge congrats! Vinted is not saying much, but there are strong signs. And following 3.2B valuation with first ever raise, Source was launched as brand new ecosystem name for data businesses powering AI economy - that’s Oxylabs, Decodo, Webshare, Honeygain and ScrapingBee. Alongside, Oxylabs launches Web API - the whole public web, fresh and ready for AI agents.
Exits. AISPECO gets acquired by Volatus Aerospace, congrats! Impressive how team built such a business from scratch, and amazing story of Gytenis first being an intern for Mantas, later backing him with 70V and Superhero Capital.
Defence, unicorn?? Will Onodrim become a unicorn soon? There are signals, would be thrilled to see. Interview with Brolis Semiconductors - they are appraoching EUR 100M revenue this year. Airvolve adds land and maritime platforms. Defense Founders Meet, an open dialogue and networking evening co-hosted by Valkyrie Dynamics and the European Defense Tech Hub (EDTH), Oct 28. Iron Wolf also backs Buntar Aerospace, taking part at latest 16M round (strong defence lineup)
AI-native tooling. Tadas getting confidence with Strunk, AI-authored docs reviewed in Google Docs. Tomas with COCC shipped Pulse - AI colleague that lives where your team already works: Slack or Teams.
People moves. Daugirdas on a new mission - joins Artea as new CMO. Ruben joins Bolt as CCO. Coming from Cognigy, Ana-Maria Banta joins Ace Waves as VP of Marketing. Ieva is now CMO at UDS. Arturas is now new co-founder at Kiloverso ecosystem. Deimantas joined Holo. Edgaras joins Lost Astronaut as product designer & venture builder.
Bargain. Annual negotiation conference arriving April 15 2027 - tickets are on early-bird mode.
Revenue-first. Impressive 100M+ revenue club. Did we miss anyone?
rounds and capital
AISPECO gets 100% acquired by Volatus Aerospace - base consideration of US$10.5 million, consisting of US$3M in cash and US$7.5M in Volatus shares, subject to adjustments.
Holo took over linkedin to announce 5M seed - by Market One Capital, alongside Silicon Gardens, FIRSTPICK, NGL Ventures, Tekton Ventures, Leonis Capital and angels.
Cachet tops €11 million in total funding as Spintop Ventures joins the investors.
15min is pushing well ahead, and starting another emission of bonds, by Artea
Kranken owner is about to acquire specialized Lithuanian Bank.
TP Recommends
We’re in it for the long run.
This week we asked people in Baltic tech which running shoes they trust. Here’s what they lace up with.
And a reminder: it’s not about the shoes or legs. It’s about the heart and mind.
Erikas Malisauskas, Kaching Appz
Adidas Adios Pro 5. Always eager to try the best possible shoe, the same shoe chosen by world record runners.
Tomas Dirvonskas, Comfort of Complex Computations
Whichever pair already has 100 km on them. Don't overthink it.
Jone Vaituleviciute, FIRSTPICK
Nike Vaporfly 1 & 2. Fast, light, and does not look like transformers.
Ričardas Pakštys, Stealth
Asics Novablast. Great for ultras & marathons.
JB Daguené, Evergrowth
Nike ZoomFly 6. ONs and Hoka's are overrated.
Siim Teller, Norrsken Evolve + Lemonade Stand
Saucony Endorophin Speed 5 - just a perfect fit of lightness, nimbleness and durability for me for most training kilometers. However, I do have 3 others shoes depending on if I want more cushion for recovery runs (Asics), extra boost for a race (Nike) or traction in the winter (Hoka). Pick the right tool for the right job :)
brand + design
Abstractions. What is AI still bad at? Abstractions, says shadcn, creator of UI kit nearly every AI tool defaults to. Each of his two latest components took weeks of research and iteration before it was good enough to ship.
Most startups aren’t spending weeks on anything right now. We can now all do mooore, faaaster. But is any of it actually good? Does anyone need it? Not entirely sure the answer is yes.
The job hasn’t changed. Make something great. Make something useful. The rest is noise.
ecosystem
EU-Inc is not doing well, and our political leaders need to raise their voices.
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