Incubating unicorns

work in progress

• Products (you can touch). 8devices released Cherry, an advanced Wi-Fi 6 module, and we are checking notes on revenue - 2x last year, at EUR 20m already. Teltonika launches TeltoHeart, a smart medical wristband, and continues to evolve its electronics stronghold.
• Marketplace. Audrius shares an unused deck for a startup, it combines three core competencies in LT - marketplaces, furniture, and strange brand names. It's a fine idea nonetheless - check Cocoli (DE), Mjuk (FI) and many others (including FB Marketplace!), not to forget Ofisas Prabangiai (talking brand names here..). If it works with sofa - why not bikes? - Karolis and Tomas built NextVelo marketplace. Also, for upcoming players in these domains, check Firstpick portfolio, Furnisystems (furniture SaaS) and Tractor Parts (marketplace).

• People. Dominykas is now head of a new business unit at Bored Panda - but what unit is that? Ieva Elvyra is leaving Revolut (there is always something happening at Revolut). Paulius Motiejunas has been unanimously voted as the new CEO of Euroleague Basketball.
• Fintech. What do Fintechs do, besides paying high salaries? Railsbank, for example, has been firing. DeepFin got spotlighted by Google Play. Montonio gains Lithuanian Payments License, expands offering in Poland. Hive5 has reached a milestone of EUR 10m in total investments. B2B payment solutions provider Hokodo announced payment operations hub in LT, after recently acquiring Vilnius-based payments startup H Pay & Go... which was started by Vytis Uogintas, CEO and co-founder Eneba (or same name!).
• Drones. We pulled together a list of drone startups in April, but clearly missed the drone gun - the Lithuanian EDM4S Skywiper system, from NT Service. Here is an article on drone wars in Ukraine mentioning it.

things planetary

• Heat pumps are a huge market expanding quickly, as noted by CTVC, Noah Smith, and recently having startups listed by Sunday CET. No surprise one more just got born - Aira. The interesting part is that it is "incubated" by Vargas Holding, which has emerged as a climate juggernaut in Europe, building+investing Northvolt, Polarium, H2 Green Steel - all three unicorns. Aira is starting with GPB 30m invested and 200 people onboard, including a factory in Poland.

(is that not the right way to do a startup? Clearly, new playbooks enter the scene, especially with capital-intensive plays. Now Sam Altman says "Honestly, I feel so bad about the advice I gave while running YC I’ve been thinking about deleting my entire blog”. Instead of quick MVP, raising little cash, etc - OpenAI raised a billion and spent 4 years building first...)