First to catch 100m

work in progress

• New. Augustinas is Co-founder and CTO at Eternis AI – focused on enabling digital twins for everyone, multi-agent coordination, and sovereign agent systems (raised $30m already). FIRSTPICK fresh accelerator batch – Buck4Bug, Codigy, Commody, Hopted.com, Skarbe, THEO Growth, Handwave. Mija is founding engineer at Aether (YC batch W24), and they recently closed seed. Talking about AI, four categories where AI startups have explosive growth rates. Battery Ventures: "AI Is Growing Our Appetite for SaaS".
• Window opens. ANA team is closing the project – sound effort and ambition, keen to see what's next for the team.
• Marketplaces. Estonia and Lithuania are top wooden house exporters, selling north EUR 500m annualy. With these stats, it was a question of time when Namuku will be born – a modern, all-in-one marketplace for prefabricated homes across Europe. Fascinating chat (Proto Industrija) with Vladas Jurkevicius (Eldorado Market and Humbility), where he revisits how everything got started and evolved. IPXO new office in Vilnius. Traxlo seem to be expanding into Czechia.

• Truly impressive lean startup – Kaching Appz explained (video), Erikas tells their story from 0 to 4.5m ARR at 90% margins.
• Rebrands and more. HeavyFinance becomes InSoil. Smartproxy turns Decodo. Verslo Angelu Fondas becomes Aneli Capital. Not a rebrand, but website update from nexos.ai. Oxylabs unveil new E-Commerce Web Data Platform (with 49 job openings, they are growing faaast).
• Deep tech is the European vibe now. Excited to see what hard work BSV has done finding, engaging and investing in academic talent, and before that, Iron Wolf Capital backed quite a few "hard tech" innovators (Litilit, Sprana, Kingdom, etc). Estonian Karma VC is well positioned with Tuum, Pactum AI, Patchstack and others, similarly, high-potential logos (Pactum, Starship, Nanordica, Gelatex) in Superangel portfolio. And yet all Baltic states need to do much more to make market work for deeptech, the risks at early stage seemingly are too high. Regulatory changes coming in LT, and even Berlin deeptech scene still needs public support. Tech transfer in Europe is still messy.
• Hardware teams have strong defence / resilience tailwind, but there is more. Altechna is tracking growing investments in photonics. Another one, backed by Founders Fund, "one the hidden gems in the Baltic region. 8-digit ARR, subscription only". LABA7 is focusing on larger markets, and already need 3x the premises and have displayed impressive capital efficiency. Airvolve's horizontal axis propulsion system has successfully passed the stress testing.

• Which one first – Ovoko, Burga or CarVertical hit EUR 100m annual revenue? Discuss, looks like a close call.
• Cross-border. Investing without borders – we are hearing Lightyear is very hot startup in Estonia now. Daniel launches e8n - an AI-powered platform on a mission to simplify and revolutionise global bank account opening. alongID has been selected to participate in the pitch competition at the inaugural Mastercard Fintech Forum in Poland. Not sure if LT is main profit-center for Polish fintech Zen.com (licence from Bank of LT), but they are have turned over EUR 46m in 2023, profitable now. Startup Lithuania compensates travel costs for going to main events (like Slush or TechBBQ and everything else).
• Calendar. Startup Meetup April 29th with Vytautas, CGO at Spike Technologies (they are on good track, hiring engineers). Startup Social Kaunas with Donatas Smailys, Billo – May 6th. The Grit Marketing Conference in Estonia, mid August. NordCamp meetup - Tech meets Sales, May 7th, CyberCity.

rounds and capital

• Another exit – Amberlo was acquired by stp.one, a German legal-tech company with 400+ experts and 8000 customers. Iron Wolf Capital and 70V have been investors.
• Bregal Milestone, which recently became a major shareholder in Ridango in Estonia, announced that Ridango will, with their support, acquire Irish software company uTrack.
• Exits in LT tech since 2012, 26 in total. Estonia counts 60 in the same period (note that EE had 2x more venture rounds starting 2011, and up to 2019).

sponsors

Cloudvisor [AWS partner dedicated to startups]
Hostinger [making online presence accessible to everyone worldwide, hiring]
PayPal [Global integrated payments solution]
Oxylabs [Step into the world of web data gathering]
VIALET [Business accounts for growth, hiring]
Presto Ventures [investing in startups – security, defense, aerospace]
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]
Superangel [Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A for tech companies]

three questions

Founding team of Emmi AI spans 🇩🇪 🇦🇹 🇱🇻 🇱🇹 – and they just secured EUR15m seed t0 get started. We are thrilled to talk to Miks Mikelsons - co-founder and COO, based in Vilnius.

What’s your story before Emmi AI - and what led you to co-found it?

MM: I’m a strong believer in the idea that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. If you’re not prepared when the right opportunity comes along, you miss your moment. Among the three Emmi AI co-founders, my background is the least technical - I’m not a scientist or a machine learning expert. I come from an operator’s background, having spent most of my career in operational and business development leadership roles at startups and scale-ups. I first met Dennis at Lokalise, where we worked together on the company’s turnaround. After I wrapped up my time there, Dennis called me and said, “There’s something potentially big happening in Linz, Austria.” That’s when I met Johannes - a true superstar in the field of AI and Simulations. It didn’t take long for me to realize: the opportunity here is massive. It was clear we had the chance to fundamentally rethink how real world engineering works - and that’s not something you walk away from.

What problem is Emmi AI solving, and why does it matter now?

Simulation is the silent engine behind innovation - in aerospace, energy, semiconductors, automotive and beyond. So much so that it became a bottleneck, as today’s simulation tools are complex, require long iterative processes and can’t address the speed modern industries need. Emmi AI is changing that. Simulations that previously took days or weeks now run in seconds - completely transforming what’s possible in real-world engineering. This shift doesn’t just save time. It enables a path to truly intelligent, data-driven digital twins that can learn, adapt, and optimize in real time. We’ve all seen how AI is transforming language, but AI for Physics and Industrial Engineering is just beginning to take off now.

From your experience across the Baltics, what would help our startup ecosystems grow faster?
Overall, I think the Baltic startup ecosystem is developing incredibly fast. If you look at metrics like Unicorns per capita or Capital raised per capita, the Baltics are among the leaders - certainly at the European level.

That said, I believe there’s still room for growth in mindset. I often see founders who are capable and talented, but hesitant to think truly globally - to chase the kinds of opportunities that could place them at the very top of their field. That ambition takes time, experience, and network access - and those are things we’re all still building collectively as an ecosystem.

founder's guide

• Valuation Drivers in B2B SaaS – metrics. Also note, that times between rounds have grown beyond 24 months. If you are venture backed, but navigating some sort of exit – good pod with saas.group, serial acquirer, what they buy and how.
  • Noteworthy: SpringWater acquires and scale SaaS tools built by bootstrapped founders, backed by Hostinger. Hiring analyst.
• So we are beyond venture factory line VS boostrapping as only alternatives. Welcome Seed-Strapping AI-Native.

• For marketing people – Asta recommends Beyond the Mean Newsletter.
• Call for startups and tools – by SMB owners.
• Salesforge: lessons from going 0 → 3M ARR in 12 months.
• Which communities are in need for tech ecosystem in Lithuania? Click to vote

further insights

• Venture x Media plays grow as A16Z acquires Turpentine podcast network and appoints Erik Torenberg as GP (playbook). John Coogan leaves Founders Fund EIR to go all-in for TBPN.
• VCs are not truly money-making machines... outliers are. Sam Lessin returned with "State of VC 2025"

• As Trump is working hard to dissmantle the edge US has in innovation, will be interesting to see how slowly yet surely tech figures will distance themselves from this administration.

ecosystem

• Europe hitting crossroads – expecting countries will double-down on their search for growth. Estonia's key edge has been light / simple / effective regulation, and that is truly powerful. Finland is dropping taxes to be more competitive.
• What are returns on top top top talent? See below

Friends of tech philomaths

• 99 AI-native Startups and Projects
  (added Sonomagic, AMLTRIX GPT, Eternis)
• Lithuanian founders in US, building something new.
• Lean and Mean - small profitable Baltic tech firms
• Baltic Founders with YC experience
• Repeat Lithuanian founders - 50+ serial founders building now

roleplay