Ethos
work in progress
- Fintechs for the better. Lightning, with Ignas as CTO, helps vulnerable in the UK access public funding. Similarly, Bronius started Inbestai to help calculate benefits (also UK). HeavyFinance already financed €50M in loans from 10k investors and will launch nature-based carbon credits in 2024 (also - partnering with softloans). kevin. is heading towards A2A payments with iOS update. Hive5 has achieved a major milestone of €10M in total invested amount. And Argyle offsite/onsite gathered distributed team into one picture.
- Apps. "Prepared mind" is a common term among VCs now, it has long history - was the founding principle of Accel firm. Connecting this idea of theme investing, one famous story is from Sequoia, which was prepared to invest in the messaging space. Jim Goetz built a tracking system to see downloads globally (data was sparse then), and outperformed others to secure Whatsapp deal. That became an incredible $3 billion return for $60M invested.
Audrius has a prepared mind, too - he researched the most downloaded Apps from the Baltics. To avoid repetition, this is what we get when limiting the developer (company) to one app only. Lots to be proud of!
- Retail. It seems shoppers prefer outdoors much more than malls, at least in the US. Also, remote work effect - retail purchases grow as consumers spend less on transport and office adjacent services. Traxlo grew 10x last year with a flexible workforce concept. Workofo brings AI to help retailers build smart schedules. MELP won IKI as a customer, bringing 5000 consumers onto their benefits platform.
- Female leadership. Lina Zakarauskaite is building She Wolf community. Contrarian Ventures organized the second Female Climate Tech Investor Dinner in Berlin.