Boughs of my brain

work in progress

• Defence. Another boost for dual-use and defence-related ventures. Some have certainly landed investment and contracts for products - keep an eye on RSI Europe (graph below), Aktyvus Photonics, Astroligh, Blackswan Space, OstraLab, MappingSoil, Unmanned Defense Systems, and Skycorp. Brolis announced securing a "groundbreaking contract", that should have some zeros.

• Build for good. Our Pocket Hero - clothes created with an insulin pump in mind - now have an adult line, too. Two students from Mazeikiai won 2nd place at Gen-E 2023 - Europe's Largest  Entrepreneurship Event. They built Brailliant, a game for the visually impaired.

• Vertical SaaS. Dovydas left Wix to build Greet - a better way for hospitality businesses to serve customers, strong signs of PMF. Beauty has a special place in LT - tech team for Treatwell, strong growth by Watalook, and now Paulius Maciulis is building Appointible, SaaS for beauty businesses to thrive.
• Fintech. Darius on why we are expecting more serious merger activity in the Fintech space. Payhawk launches in LT, and opens an office. Bank of Lithuania approved the first two license applications for European crowdfunding operations: HeavyFinance and Andrum.
• Correction. We mentioned Manufy and Bio-Fluff from Katalista Ventures last week, they were part of the accelerator, but are not part of the KV investment portfolio.

• Covid hangover is going well. DTC brands are asking - Is it harder? Or are you worse? Well, e-commerce in the US has been flat after the initial boost

Pandemic invention - quick grocery delivery - went full circle. Gorillas, for example, raised a total of $1B+, to be later acquired for $1.2B by Getir, the Turkish superstar. Well, today you can buy one of their scooters in London, as they are pulling out of the UK, as done with France and Italy, and NL+DE seems to be on the list, too. In this context, Ziticity story is just fine, better to stop earlier!

We care more about bikes, as you know, another hot covid stock. But also a little depressing here. The new micro-mobility darling Vanmoof (Balderton led series C, $128 m) just went bankrupt. Comodule co-founder Kristjan made a good summary. Radpower pulled out of Europe. Lots of brands sitting on tons of inventory, craving for cashflow these days (you get an e-bike when buying Porsche - in Amsterdam, of course).

Things will get better pretty soon. We've put some asphalt in Neringa. PON will still build a factory in Kedainiai. The biggest disappointment, however, is that there is still no "cycle to work" scheme in LT (and the Baltics?). Jobrad, which started in DE 10 years ago, has put 1 million bikes on the road, and employs 700+ people.

rounds and capital

• Highland Europe, Energize Ventures and Elephant came together with $100m round for PVcase. Massive - to say the least -  series B, and would not be surprised if guys have more acquisitions in mind. Exciting venture - head here and help them build. (They also shared the deck but we prefer a data room instead of this "short version good.pdf")

Presto Ventures (here are three questions with Roman Novacek) picked up two great teams in LT, thank you for that!

• GoRamp secures $3m late seed for further growth, led by LEAD Ventures, along with Willgrow, Presto Ventures, SWG and angels. Their CEO and founder Jevgenij shared his thoughts a while ago - grounded + driven entrepreneur.
• Spenfi raised a EUR 800k seed round, led by Presto Ventures and Business Angels Fund II, joined by a group of business angels.

ZENOO is raising EUR 300k seed round extension to boost acquisition in the UK+DE , targeting EUR 50k - 75k MRR. Current investors are following up in this - led by Toma Sabaliauskienė (CMO Tesonet / NordVPN), Dmitry Sumin (EstBan), Erik Bhular ( EstBan / Baltic Sandbox) and joining several new angel investors from LitBan. Already 200,000 EUR committed, tickets EUR 25k.

See the deck

founder's guide

• How to cold email to get VCs' attention

• Next step - a smart thing to do - keep potential investors in the loop with regular updates.
• Angel investing library
• FT released 500 high-growth Asia-Pacific companies for 2023. Someone ran the list and highlighted interesting companies if you want to copy.
• Keith Rabois wisdom in one notion website
• How today’s top consumer brands measure marketing’s impact
• 20 CEO Lessons Learned at HubSpot on the Journey from $0 to $20billion

Few pods on building and leadership

• Lessons in leadership | Scaling an org, developing yourself, and tactical management advice | Jack Altman (Lattice) - podcast
• Kasper Hulthin on learnings co-founding Peakon, Podio, and Future Five
  (Insights by Angular Ventures) - podcast
• How to Build A Personal Holding Company in 2023 | Greg Isenberg, Late Checkout (media empires) - podcast

roleplay

further insights

• Future of Real Estate? Look to Japan (Dror Poleg)
• Iceland's first unicorn is - you guessed it - fish skin woundcare firm
• Some people are just outlandishly prolific:

Thomas Edison: averaged a patent every 10-12 days of his adult life.

Albert Einstein: “Scientists call 1905 Albert Einstein’s annus mirabilis — his year of miracles. Within a few months, Einstein wrote a series of papers that would transform the way we see the universe. They included his theory of special relativity and the famous equation E=mc².”

Pablo Picasso: “His prolific output includes over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, theatre sets”

Together in this

"I will reach you wherever you are" - series A investors who deployed inflated rounds in 2021/22.