ClAImate

work in progress

• Life Sciences. We can start with the fact that deep tech produces good outcomes for venture. Locally, Bumelis is making a buzz with grandiose Bio City - and starting first with the Gene Therapy Center to open next year. Thermo Fisher Scientific local revenues contracted last year as COVID went away - to as "little" as EUR 1.5B. We need to have more newcomers - like Vugene, Vital 3D Technologies, or Exolitus. On a good funding and traction track seem to be Atrandi Biosciences, Biomatter, Oxipit and Ligence AI - which just got granted a US patent.

• Slush. Coolest European tech event and a way to gauge the zeitgeist of venture. Here is the key data point: the startup winner Faircado is an AI-powered browser plugin which automatically finds cheaper second-hand alternatives when consumers are shopping online. Please embrace scrappiness and walk the talk - even today Milda Mitkute makes headlines like "My company is bigger than eBay but never buy my kids new toys and I make them sell the ones they have", saying hi from Berlin. What else emerged as world-class at Slush? Donatas Keras wins OpenOcean's legendary Slush Poker Tournament.
• Indie. Eimantas (Nord Security) and Tadas (Kilo Health) told their bootstrapping stories, which boils down to "it's awesome if you can pull it off". They agree profitable growth in fashion again, and Bryce is back to tell the indie VC story - he is telling these 200k people after layoffs will come up with more sustainable ventures. Well, we have now both of the two worlds (profitable growth and more venture euros) - LT is one of the few countries where venture investment has gone up compared to 2022.

rounds and capital

• Best EMEA VC investors by Dealroom. It is LocalGlobe at Seed (still love their positioning - it involves trains and economic geography), Index at series A, Insight at a later stage. And then 20VC breaks in as Next Gen fund - best performing among newcomers (master of media - podcast can go a long way?)
• Siena Secondary Fund acquires a stake in Estonian energy storage company Skeleton Technologies - their portfolio is quite a few nice logos.
• Vecticum received some Google Cloud credits, which do not count as equity investment. Congrats anyways.
• Latvians bring Tinder onto Telegram, and of course, name it Flirtu Dating. Sure enough, Flirtu lands EUR 200k investment, too .

Talking about cloud... 6 AWS Cost Optimisation Tips To Reduce Your AWS Bill

founder's guide

• There are ways to add learning and impact to your career - don't get stuck
• Five common stock option program mistakes (in LT)
• On-point summary. Every VC *wants* to be contrarian, but few (very, very few?) truly are.

further insights

• Disney has a different take on robots and they are pretty lovely
• Writing to Think, by Shane Parrish.

Mortimer Adler once said, “The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.”<...>

Writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. <...>

Most organizations see PowerPoint and writing as interchangeable. They are not. Powerpoint masks poor thinking. Just because presentations are easy to create doesn’t mean the person creating them understands what they are talking about. If my experience is any indication, about 30-40% of people giving presentations lack more than a surface-level knowledge of what they are presenting.

• I like Noah Smith's writings on the economy and industrial policy, but also for calling out David Sacks for being a jerk. Just a helpful reminder.

ecosystem

• There are 73 000 foreigners living in Vilnius: they praise it for education and the labour market, but it is difficult for them to integrate into Lithuanian communities and learn the language. The summary also talks about foreigners being pleased with private services (education, healthcare) and less happy about public services. That's a shame and we choose to ignore this for far too long.

roleplay

Pick a startup - find a job

Inspired by the reader’s comment below, a practical framework for how to think, research and find the best jobs in the tech market. A draft -help improve this by sending your suggestions. The early options that matter have already matured and there are just not enough high-growth early stage startu…

Tech PhilomathsEditor

How to get a job at a startup? Zoe (Sequoia) has good tips but is under a paywall at Sifted now.

three questions, previously

• Sten Tamkivi, Partner, Plural and Partner, Taavet+Sten
• Rytis Lauris, Co-founder and CEO, Omnisend
• Andreas Helbig, Partner, Atomico
• Domas Janickas, Co-founder at edON
• Milda Jasaite, Senior Director of Corporate Development, Vinted
• Darius Zakaitis, Founder & CEO, Tech Zity
• Roman Novacek, Partner, Presto Ventures
• Lina Zakarauskaite, Principal, Stride.VC
• Justinas Pasys, Managing Director, LitBAN
• Magnus Hambleton, Investor, byFounders