Let them ride

work in progress

• Tops? 30 Top VC-Recommended Baltic Startups to Watch. Great set of names.
• Wealth tops, Estonia. Top ten richest in Estonia (is LT couple IPOs away?)
  • Kristo Käärmann (2.19B), Taavet Hinrikus (1.2B) (both Wise), Markus Villig (Bolt, 1.16B), Jaan Tallinn (Ambient Sound Investments, Metaplanet Holdings, Soft Park Investments) (644M), Margus Linnamäe (MM Grupp, 629M)
  • The top ten also includes Oliver Leisalu (Bolt), Raul Kirjanen (Graanul Invest, Biofuel), Oleg Ossinovski (Skinest Grupp), Anders Anderson (Graanul Invest, Neoinvesteeringud) and Martin Villigu (Bolt).
• Defence. It really is a different playbook, isn't it? Why a defense-focused merchant bank is the best fit for defense tech startups. NATO's DIANA announced 15 startups going into Phase II – Wayren and Telearmy from Estonia on the list. Take note of Monopulse, led by Justas (Denmark – Lithuania). Defence Innovation Day in Estonia Sept 22.
• Spaces. Nord Security opens the new office in Warsaw. Hacker Spaces. _buildspace is where action is, true Sekmadienine Mokyklele for new Age. They inspired friends in Estonia to launch Ruum – hope it grows crazy well, too!

• Building Culture. RE/style is a bold new fashion competition show co-created with Vinted. Antanas Marcelionis (know for AmCharts, a somewhat secretive but very successful product), wrote a book, hits 2025 Killer Nashville Award Winners and Finalists.
• Marketplaces. Bread and butter, aren't they, in Lithuania. We typically list Vinted, Eneba, Eany.io, CG Trader, Saltz, IPXO, and there is one more surfacing with accelerated revenue (x2 to 16M) and profitability – Eldorado.gg (now in-game trading market leader)
• Moats. Been thinking about software durability lately. I suggest many founders need to take one more step – downstream (data) or upstream (network). Let me explain.
  • LLMs spin up workflow tools overnight. Most SaaS is workflows. Fragile. "Moats" of building aren't moats anymore. Features get cloned. No depth → churn chases you. What to add? 1) Own what others can't. Build systems that capture original, proprietary data. Bring it into the workflow. Let this compound. Data makes software harder to kill. Clone the UI? Can't clone the history. I'm thinking about Flightradar now. 2) Networks > isolated users. Most SaaS serves users isolated. Durable software does the opposite: each new user adds value for everyone, the network becomes part of the product. Shows up as community, collaboration, or aggregated demand. Not software anymore – infrastructure. Ovoko is great example (SaaS+marketplace+logistics). Modash is also moving from workflow dynamics into broader service and marketplace, watch them.
• Builders. Can't do AI bec you are not cracked, not 20 anymore, and can't hustle on Sunday? Wrong. But the need for momentum is real, if you are serious.
• The brilliant people. Leonas joined Sitra.ai as CMO. Karol is now CMO at RatePunk. Ada is Executive Director at qLABS, the world’s first quantum-native crypto foundation. Olle Pridiuksson is starting as a new Solutions Engineer at QA.tech. Tarmo Tali hired as new CTO at Bisly. Gabriele is now head of product at Surfshark.
• AI scalers. AI exits to begin? Workday acquires Sana for $1.1B. Will Aleph Alpha (led by a Lithuanian-origin founder) bounce back? In the same theme, builders will be meeting Oct 2nd in Vilnius for this event – The Founder’s Story Vilnius (tech and product leaders from Hostinger, CarVertical, Repsense, Perfection42, more)
• The pirates (of pashtomats). In the Netherlands and France, consumers are abusing Vinted‘s cheap shipping service to send large packages to themselves or family and friends.

Startup Fair 2025: The Future Gathers in Vilnius

On October 9, Vilnius becomes the center of startup gravity. Startup Fair 2025 is back - louder, bolder, and more global than ever. Think 2,000+ curious minds, 450+ boundary-pushing startups, and over 430 investors from 65+ countries. One day. One expo hall. Infinite connections.

We are thrilled to see some top investors landing in VNO, like

• Magnus Hambleton, byFounders
• Mehmet Atici, Bek Ventures
• Rebecka Löthman Rydå, Norrsken
• Guy Ward Thomas, DN Capital
• and many more!

Get your tickets → https://www.startupfair.lt/tickets

rounds and capital

• MELP raised €1.25 million in investment from Coinvest Capital and business angels.
• Rytis Jakubauskas, CEO at Comgy, gets their company acquired by advizeo and the Hager Group. (Rytis initially founded another startup, Palmo, in Germany – we talked April 2022).
• Iron and Adriaan from Simple Analytics acquired the leadsontrees.com product from Tadas Gedgaudas. No surprise they were visiting _basedspace recently. Read the story here, congrats, Tadas!
• Outlast Fund: New Baltic-Nordic VC fund closed at 21M EUR, will invest in pre-seed and seed-stage. Based in Riga and Stockholm, with initial pre-seed tickets of up to 250,000 EUR and 1.5M EUR seed rounds.
• Roqad, Europe’s largest trusted identity aggregator and data onboarding partner (Iron Wolf Portfolio) has announced the acquisition of Zeotap-Data, Zeotap’s third-party audience business.

sponsors

Cloudvisor [AWS partner dedicated to startups]
Hostinger [making online presence accessible to everyone worldwide, hiring]
Google For Startups [cloud credits up to $350K, expert support & faster growth]
Oxylabs [Step into the world of web data gathering]
VIALET [Business accounts for growth, hiring]
Surfshark [Top 50 among fastest growing in EU, hiring]
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]
Superangel [Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A for tech companies]

founder's guide

• Daniel Ek's (Co-Founder, Spotify) Morning Routine
• Your new project? forget digital. Rob Kalin, founder of Etsy, uses giant scroll of paper to map thoughts and ideas.
• What Are Some Red Flags in a Founder?
• Fyxer AI playbook for fundraising at rapid speed.
• Cost of Leadership Talk at Vinted, Sept 23rd, w/ Simonyte, Plantenga, Burgiene (waiting list)

roleplay

Thinking: if you can teach yourself how to effectively build n8n and other AI automations, you can probably land a job at most of these companies –

further insights

• Remember these dog-robots? Forget about them.
• Marketing insights from growing to $ >50M in two years

ecosystem

• World Innovation Report 2025 with following rankings and one interest stat – unicorn valuation and GDP ratio (LT and ES share #1 with Israel, US, Singapore and Nigeria).
  
  🇪🇪 #16
  🇱🇹 #33
  🇱🇻 #41