Articles

While everyone rushes for quick AI wins, the real edge belongs to those building with patience and taste. Thomas Plantenga proves it with Vinted's incredible turnaround and a €2.2M donation for investigative journalism, 14-year-olds are shipping profitable startups, Estonia’s AI push.

Enjoy your Easter thinking about this unique point in time, where you can build pretty much anything – whatever that can float your boat. Decisions are the hard part now, don't let opportunities decay. See you around

Multiple product launches. AI comes after voice, and radio, too. FDE = FTE?

Cashflow and GDP. What started as let's "build an app”, now becoming key drivers of the economy. Nord Security announced hitting EUR 1B revenue in 2025, Vinted is also above 1B for the last year, Hostinger is EUR 275M, Kilo is yet to announce. What to compare to?

Introducing Newsfeed: to help you track what’s happening in Baltic tech and global tech that matters to builders here. No algorithms. Not AI-curated feed. Just people who build things, following other people who build things, and surfacing what’s worth your attention.

Happy Independence Restoration Day, Lithuania! Time flies, so spend it wisely. 20 years ago today, Milda Mitkute was still having too many clothes, but Vinted would only be launched two years later, when she had to move apartments. Tesonet / Nord Security founders have been still tinkering with some of the 34 failing projects, before starting Nord in 2008. For Hostinger, Hosting Media was already live, and in 2007 they launched 000webhost, a free hosting platform that became massively popular with beginners building websites. And twelve years ago, 2014, Ovoko co-founder Justians bought an auto scrapyard in Siauliai and started new spreadsheet...

The software startup game was sorted – until it isn't anymore. If one could walk down that path, now running became the only option. Hopefully, founders and investors align on the following questions. Did our pace of experimentation change with AI? How market is inevitably changing, not today, but in the next 24 months? Are we playing defence – or offense – given the technology at hand? How are we building with AI – have we accelerated our output and outcomes?

Machines, starting with Hostinger which grows... another 50%+, hitting EUR 275M EUR in 2025! Choose your multiple on this, but already evident now this team is in the unicorn territory. Having 4.6M customers, Hostinger has a massive base to launch new products, and assume some many thousands today are needing VPS for OpenClaw to play...

Entering a second wave in tech? The initial response to Ukraine centered on urgent tactical: getting drones, radars, and hardware to the front lines. Focus now is to build comprehensive platforms and integrated systems that can scale. Aistis Šimaitis and Alexander Blessing emerge from stealth with Onodrim, and truly massive EUR 40M debut funding by top invetors – Founders Fund, Lakestar, and General Catalyst.

If stock market is not giving, the startups covered in this newsletter are just the opposite. No lack of pace or ambition. Warm welcome to Saily (by Nord Security) and Eldorado as Tech Philomath supporters. Very impressive teams, hiring rapidly -- check them out.

Hot startups pursuing enterprise GTM - like Ace Waves, nexos.ai, Chaseit, isLucid and others. What large scaleups Dealroom report could have missed? We ask LLMs to research.

AI scaleups, edtech, marketplaces... Smth new & exciting – Rokas from Achoo is helping write a new segment called brand + design. We both believe all tech companies have to become WAY more strategic regarding this in the AI era. Creativity, taste, judgement, angle – everything else can be automated, today.

Lithuania's #5 s Cast AI, another amazing company. Zero to billion worth, in five years. Many aspects are impressive about Cast AI, starting with the founder Yuri Frayman – he's got four exits under his belt, before this startup.

Happy New Year friends! Let's make it better in 2026. Wishing you only "thick desires" for 2026, as explained in one of the texts below (a thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it, a thin desire is one that doesn't).

Hi friends! Another one packed with updates, and the plan is to ship another newsletter between Christmas and NY. Thank you for reading, building, investing, supporting, sponsoring. You are all truly awesome. Merry Christmas!

Number of new ventures, frontrunners in Estonia (tech is 4.3% GDP!), founders from Vilnius Lyceum, cconsumer AI and more.

Jeff Bezos' agenting AI startup Project Prometheus acquires General Agents – an impressive exit for Jurgis Pašukonis! Mantas announces $2M pre-seed and Obi 2.0, the most human-like AI onboarding agent on the market. Started early, but Estonian Pactum AI is just accelerating – increased ARR 2.5X this year. Agent Engineers needed at Ace Waves and Chaseit.

Prosperity comes from producing many different things - and from producing things that not everyone can

Want to be a co-founder, join an early, promising team? We give tips, but also cover ventures in sports, 3D market, people moves and more. Big news from Vinted - they just ignited a second-stage booster (1B rev, going US).

Builder movement is incredible, a fresh new wave of talent is making things, and they need space with culture installed. We look at 7 new products, new Kilo platform and more.

AI-native launches (Ace Waves) , what growth actually matters (Hostinger), exciting ventures in health and wellbeing, games, security and defence)

Combination of youth entrepreneurs and world domination, starting from the Baltics

nexos.ai, Supernaut, Scamguardian raises funds and we revisit technology adoption curve to anticipate for AI robots taking over our streets

Successfully building, but less exposed when no capital has been raised. UI Bakery is bootstrapped, profitable – helps companies build internal web apps. Kristel Kruustük started as a freelance tester and slowly-but-steadily built Testlio into a leading QA platform – 7-figure MRR. We keep tracking Greet work done by Greet, but GlobalTips also started in Vilnius, now at 1300 active restraurants.

The launch of our new brand and web! Also, how AI product hypes create new opportunities, the rise of Vinted brand, return of Tadas Burgaila and more.

Dunes x AI x e-commerce x Kilo Health (kopa.ai). Edtech challengers w/ Unive AI, Edu Challenger another batch, and Kris+Lukas are back with new ventures. Also keen to see BURGA becoming top fashion brand, Brite new "Liquid Death" or bigger, Traxlo shaping new gig economy in retail.

New, useful, performing. Paulius Gervė: find where the closest parcel locker is. Simas Klioštoraitis - finds and comments on Reddit for Callsy AI. Kris Darzins builds cool web with Ordinary.page

Wealth tops, Estonia. Building culture, building moats.

Bolt valuation and possibility to buy shares. Founder linkedin content - is it ghostwriter or AI helping Guoga? Growth of Turing College.

Latvian entrepreneurs connecting hardware+software for impressive ventures: HackMotion - Aerones - Giraffe360 - NATRIX UGV - drones From humble beginnings at Tech Zity, basedspace_ are about to move to a larger, 750 sqm premises at this emerging campus. More builders are getting a roof!

Creators & scale · Mishkay Biotech says creativity is a choice, Crafty Panda reminds us what 19M YouTube subscribers look like, Kenislovas to be watched.

Betting on decentralisation. Rizon launches with seasoned founding team building a new global neobank on stablecoin rails. Axiology explains why tokenization is here to stay, and they are pushing hard a licensed player now.

Science and research driven tech - such as Handwave with strong seed, also KELI Therapeutics (2.5M grant from EIC), Litilit with 1.87M grant to develop new laser, COVA Green charging tech, and space innovators Blackswan Space and Astrolight. Flying cars not here yet, but getting closer with Rhino racing. MBito is one to watch, OBDeleven also growing.

Forbes-30’s Modestas Mankus, Tesonet’s arena takeover, padel by Tournated, €4M+ rounds for Cariqa & Jälle, standout EdTech, DefTech & AI nutrition apps, a new hackathon and a hiring blitz. Ask ChatGPT

AI hardware heats up, Lightyear scores $23M, Zen.com surges to €93M, Greï grows, Shopify apps boom, Mishkay Biotech hits €1M, Astrolight wins big at CASSINI, Moldova emerges, and why you need a vibe marketer now.

Baltic startups debut AI health, fertility & art apps as Sentante nails a 1,600 km robotic stroke thrombectomy and InSoil & Oxylabs seal seven-figure carbon-farming and ScrapingBee deals.

Amid the AI rush, the Baltics buzz with indie projects, fitness & health apps, and FinOps launches - driven by industrial design flair and London-linked founders.

Bolt rockets to €1.99B revenue as Estonia’s tech scene surges with AI, supply-chain innovations, e-commerce ventures and unicorn-hungry leadership moves.

Walk15 hits 1 M users as Baltic founders shatter AI, e-commerce, fintech & health records—powered by bold pivots and trailblazing women.