Land and expand

work in progress

• Who is landing and expanding? Hostinger customer base is accelerating (17 years to reach 1st million, 3 more years to reach 2nd million, now 12 monhts for 3rd million); they are also mastering AI for CS, and chasing us all by sponsoring favorite podcasts. Nord Security is another one – both organic and through M&A , from B2C into B2B, new products (Saily) and much more. Interesting hints from Vinted, testing categories outside clothes (electronics)? And another fired talk from Thomas Plantega – I am certain financial markets will receive him well.

• Solar. What's the last stage at Gartner technology Hype Cycle – is it something like wild unleash? Fascinating read by Azeem Azhar on Pakistan, which responded to lasting energy troubles by importing solar capacity equivalent to 30% of its total electricity generation capacity – in just 6 months.

Energy is wealth. There are no rich countries that are energy-poor. And if you are a poor, poorly run country, becoming energy-rich—and enjoying the benefits of cheap power—has been a distant dream. Until now.

Ironically, Germany played a big role in the revolution – Hans-Josef Fell did, to be specific. A local councilor in Hammelburg, he installed a 4.2 kW PV on the roof of his home in 1994, and convinced the local utility company to pay him 2 Deutsche Marks (about 1 Euro) per kilowatt-hour. As a policy mechanism, feed-in-tarrif played huge role to build market demand for years – to a point where solar became the lowest cost energy (from probably the most expensive two decades ago). Now Germans are also buying and playing with small and simple plug-in balcony solar systems, 500,000 already. With startups, as all is following PVcase growth (graph below), who else? Inion Software hit 1m revenue, profitable. Soldera built an automated Guarantees of Origin sales agent, already used by 450+ production sites in Estonia.

• Laser scene is growing, including military applications. One to watch is Aktyvus Photonics, started by former Altechna CTO (Altecha is actively hiring business and production roles). Diodela, producer of industrial laser systems for material processing, is trippling revenues year-by-year. Integrated Optics expanding into Klaipeda. In September Baltic Sandbox Ventures is launching a program for Laser Technology ventures in the New Nordics – grants and pre-accelerator.
• AI might be an overkill for simple outbound sequences, but can also make sales massively more productive if used right (see Evergrowth demo how to 10x homework). This can reduce minimum viable ACV, so you can bring sales team for smaller contracts.
• Drone demand is surging – for Ukraine first, but also building up capacity elsewhere. Edge Autonomy in Latvia (formerly UAV Factory) closed 2023 with almost EUR 80m revenue and EUR 29m in profits; in LT, NT Service profit tripples to EUR 14m, following EUR 34m of income. RSI Europe is now offering FPV drone training. Vilnius also introduced drone training space. Curious to see what Lendurai is building in Estonia, Scalewolf pre-accelerator added NSI Labs (infrared lasers for anti-drone systems).
• Calendar. Kaunastic startups joining free Hoperfy Ride to Startup Fair (October 3rd). Nice lineup of speakers for everything apps, Aug 27th Tuesday

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rounds and capital

• Siena Secondary fund seems to be progressing towards fund II – EBRD have given them approval for EUR 10m.
• Civinity expands in Latvia: acquires a 9.99% stake in Mobilly, the leader in mobile payments in Latvia (approx 400,000 users). Financials not disclosed.
• Finora Bank has secured a EUR 5.6 million investment; out of those, EUR 2.15m is equity capital.
• Lectrium adding new investors – a round in the works?

sponsors

Meet our friends pushing the startup scene forward.
Want to join as a sponsor? Reply to this email for details.

Cloudvisor [AWS partner dedicated to startups]
PayPal [Global integrated payments solution]
Vinted [largest C2C European marketplace, always hiring]
Tech Zity [tech hubs and campuses across Lithuania]
Presto Ventures [investing in startups at the forefront of security, defense, aerospace]
Wargaming [award-winning game developer, careers]
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]

founder's guide

• Fresh co-founders pose more of the team risk

co-founders who had worked together in the past were 50% more likely to raise future Series-A and Series-B funding rounds.

• New founder's must: how to request/do an email intro
• Many things founders might want from their first VCs, but helping raise next rounds is hugely important. Check with other portfolio companies how much they typically help, it varies a lot (Andris has a sound network, for example)
• Lessons from v1 consumer hardware launches – from WHOOP founder
• Understand " VC game of inches" when fundraising – even an old date on the deck might hurt you.
• How would you build an audience from scratch in 2024? (also why I love writing these letters weekly)

further insights

• "Social listening" goes beyond limited Google Alerts with AI – try RivalSense, for example, people also look at NotifyGPT, etc.
• Time to market sometimes can be everything

wild story of how I made $1,036,175 during the COVID lockdowns by rapidly creating a new physical product in 7 days.

• We need to get back to talking progress –

"Critically influential literature is increasingly fixated on the past, at least through roughly 2015. Meanwhile, the word frequency data for fiction seems reasonably clear that words associated with progress and the future have been on the decline for more than a century.

Tech Philomaths' community

• Startup lists for the Baltics - Drone startups, Marketplaces, Sportstech
• Repeat Lithuanian founders - now added ex-founders of Applaudience, Lemon Labs, Nanoavioncs, Robolabs – all building new ventures (40 serial entrepreneurs)

ecosystem

• Good Economist piece on how countries fail to focus on talent – and how much it would make a difference. In another set of news, data from US/Canada/Australia showing student immigration drop 20-30%. And also – for the first time in 50 years, more foreigners leave Sweden than arrive.

roleplay

Hiring heuristic, followed by Jeff Bezos