Hot climate hot economy

work in progress

• Taking CRM in parts. Several unicorns will be built going after Mailchimp, probably more after Salesforce? Breezit targets trillion-dollar event industry (started as Foxy Wedding in LT), Ventury.app is CRM for founders fundraising in the Baltics, UKU is for accounting firms, and 4logist is of course for freight forwarders.
• Fun to continue with governments doing all to cool economies. Who will thrive? Startups that help companies save & automate (CAST AI, ConnectPay), people save (Rubbee, Markestro), and invest in skills (Turing College).
• These headcount growth graphs last week were Melsoft Games and Wargaming, are these guys taking all the apartments in Vilnius?
• Events. Fashion Sprint: Pitches to Improve Circular Fashion (today). Favro office warming (June 30). Eimantas' Mailerlite story video.

rounds and capital

• Roq.ad raises $7m Series A round to ensure digital marketing addressability and GDPR compliance in a cookieless future. Led by DNX Ventures, OCA Ventures, and AperiamVentures, early investors were 70V and Iron Wolf Capital.
• Leafood raises $6.75m to develop a vertical farming network for the Baltics. The round was led by Niels Peter Pretzmann, founder of organic farm Farmer’s Circle and hospitality hub Baltic Food Republic, alongside YesHealth Group and another private investor.
• Estonian VC Superangel announces new €50m fund, going after deep tech in Baltics/Nordics and surely enjoying inbound from Lithuania as we speak.
• In the financing downturn, Lithuania's profitable scale-ups enjoying the moment. Omnisend featured by Sifted.  All might succeed in attracting top talents.

roleplay

founder guide [WFH]

Remote & hybrid is now a standard, everyone has an opinion, but what's the evidence?

• Talent. Employees desire about 2 WFH days, and employers are planning with 1 WFH day. People seem to value hybrid WFH 2-3 days a week as much as 5% of a pay raise. 15% would quit or look for a WFH job if forced back in-person full time (Bloom and others)
• Young talent. More remote = danger zone, as folks stop mentoring, creating new bonds & become more siloed (here) Bad for innovation & careers. Fresh talent in the job market might miss out on promotions and career recognition.
• Innovation. Remote is a challenge, fine for sustained innovation and efficiency gains (Microsoft study). "When teams become remote, we find, they pursue less foundational and more incremental ideas". Bottom line - strive for the right mix to combine satisfaction with business drive. Also, alternating between individual idea generation and group idea evaluation helps, for innovation.
• Cities. Cities need to reinvent themselves to be desirable regardless of employment. Also Glaeser highlights that "we are a social species that gets smart by being around other smart people". Driving towards remote reduces the critical function of the cities: raising productivity and creating wellbeing, and for ages that was the reason for urbanisation.

insights

• Newsletters to check out. Young Money. The Caffeine Capitalist. The Prepared. Chartbook (Adam Tooze).  
• Podcast episodes.  Call of Duty: Free (fascinating story connecting Ireland, duty free, Irish coffee, Shenzen). Industrial Policy and Climate Change (with Dani Rodrik). Strava (Early Days podcast).
• Lithuania's co-create brand.

three questions

Marko Oolo, General Partner, Superangel

How does a VC fund get the president to invest along?
It is simple, but not easy. You have to have the most well-known brand in your area. As well as a good track record and reputation. Our previous president is very tech-savvy and she wanted some well-managed early-stage tech exposure in her portfolio.

Only 1 portfolio company from LT - do you expect this ratio to change?
We see Lithuania as a promising location for the next years to come. Was impressed by the StartupFair and the mission of the community as well as Vilnius' major. Very tech supportive.

Based on Lithuanian pitches that you have seen - what are common challenges or mistakes?
Sometimes founders are not ambitious enough. Limited by the geography (staying local for too long) or by the ability to communicate vision.

There is tokenization element in your fund - how will that work in simple terms?
We will share the success of the fund with the people who are contributing to the success of our portfolio companies. Mentors at our events, experts working with portfolio companies, founders, intro makers, deal sourcers etc etc. We want everyone to be aligned for the same mission. We are mightier together.