Light breaking

work in progress

• Newww. Margarita Poderyte [BAETA Carbon Solutions] won a Venture Cup Denmark Competition – the best University startup 2024, congrats! Mindaugas just launched Eany.io – new B2B marketplace where he is bringing years of experience from the wholesale industry. Vytautas is starting Unbound Autonomy – resilient AI for mission-critical operations.
• AI. Klarna details how AI helped cut marketing agency spending by 25% (also interesting, seems they can be dropping headcount). WhiteBridge.ai joins FIRSTPICK accelerator – they are building solutions for personal public data online. Perfection42 is learning how important security is when working with large studios. Together with two PhDs in AI, Simon started a little AI agency for the public sector, Tortue.studio.
• RE. Soho House opened 30 years ago, and.. never had a profitable year (yet). FlowSpace (with Ieva as co-founder) keep building the best product for hybrid/remote teams. Proptech Lithuania re-elected chairman Domas Dargis, and re-elected president Martinas Eitmonas, but have a new Board.

• Agencies. Globalization began with the trade of goods and advancements in transport like ships and trains. It accelerated further with the advent of communications—placing an overseas factory order became much easier with email. We expected services to undergo a similar transformation with tools like Zoom, enabling professionals like lawyers to operate from low-cost locations. However, this shift has only partially materialized. Incentives remain strong, so business models will evolve accordingly. An example is the traditional agency service model, historically unscalable except through franchising. Now, startups and creators are reimagining it with new approaches: productized services, recurring revenue, no meetings, scalable delivery teams, and more.. Have you seen this in the Baltics? beCreatives could be one. From the startup scene, Billo navigated close to the model, although it's a marketplace for creators, too. CGtrader combines marketplace with their own delivery service.
• Indie. How to be extra productive as an indie hacker. What is the ultimate flex as a successful indie hacker? Possibly getting a house with no mortgage, paid with "wifi money" – see Erikas and Modestas. Also, Erikas did a talk on his journey, how to turn from a designer into an entrepreneur.
• People moves. oxipit announced Peter Corscadden as the new CEO to drive global expansion; Gediminas Peksys will transition to Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer role. Ignas Budvytis is joining Cambridge Innovation Capital as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR). Lukas from Vinted joins another cool emerging marketplace - buycycle in Germany. Jorgen Persson joins Salesforge. Kaidi is stepping down from Funderbeam, will be on the Board of the Group.

sponsors

Privileged to receive support from a group of core sponsors, who decided to get onboard. They have some newsletter invites, too!

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 early-stage B2B startups and marketplaces],
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]
Wargaming [award-winning game developer, careers]

resources

• Startup lists for the Baltics - Drone startups, Marketplaces, Sportstech
• Repeat Lithuanian founders
• Ex-founders and operators, exploring something new

rounds and capital

• Spike Technologies closed an oversubscribed $3.5 m seed funding round, co-led by Practica Capital and The Venture City with the participation of CEAS Investments, Plug and Play Tech Center, Geek Ventures and HEARTFELT_ . Very impressive trajectory, and they are well positioned to ride the new health data meets GenAI wave.
• Contrarian Ventures co-led EUR 3.6 m round for Decade Energy, a software platform that manages truck operators’ transitions to electric fleets. Interestingly, this was started by Carl Magnus Norden, who founded Volta Trucks in 2019, raised almost $400m, but had to file for bankruptcy at 2023, mostly due to the collapse of battery supplier, Proterra.
• Lithuania has the 2nd startup backed by Y Combinator. Antanas Žilinskas with Entangl joins YC S24 batch. They are on a mission to bring engineering design software to 2024 (from 1980s), saving thousands of work hours.
• Latvian RivalSense raised an angel round from Change Ventures, Fiedler Capital, and local business angels. RivalSense uses AI to provide weekly smart updates about selected companies – works really nicely and we'll use it for the newsletter.
• Estonian SensusQ (intelligence management software for defence) secured EUR 3.8m from US-based New North Ventures and angel investors. It's also the first dual investment for Specialist VC.
• Latvian fleet management solution provider Mapon has strengthened its market position in LT by acquiring Trackon Fleet Management.

• Invega and Altum (LV) have a joint call for a new fund manager. The Baltic Capital Markets Accelerator Fund aims to alleviate capital access problems to local firms by providing financing to pre-IPO SMEs and small or innovative mid-cap companies. Invega and Altum are investing EUR 38m, and at least 10m has to be secured from private investors.
• After 10 years of Black Pearls (backed HeavyFinance, Traxlo, Ondato), Polish VCs are launching Balnord, early-check investor for Poland+Baltics.

ecosystem

• Macron is making a big push for tech in France, and it gets much noticed (having some AI action lends credibility, too - Mistral, Hugging Face). Tech got very vibrant in Europe, the landscape is under reconfiguration, thus Darius asked where exactly are the Lithuanian political leaders? Estonian friends are in Stockholm at least:

founder's guide

• Imagining how org can be designed differently. Outseta goes for "life profitability" – they operate without budgets, targets, or OKRs, maintaining a flat hierarchy with no bosses. Salaries are the same.
• The Two Laws Of Startup Physics by Eric Paley:
  • Capital compounds positive and negative formulas
  • All positive systems compound at diminishing rates of return
• For those wanting to sell the startup – try talking to exited founders. The truth is, many want to get back to the game, and are screening for the right idea.

further insights

• Rethinking VC, Slow Ventures PhD –

• Why certain shopping streets are beautiful, and others, often only a short distance away, are a mess?
• WaPo reports on the fascinating data that show everyone thinks that everything – from the best movies and music to trustworthy news and political unity – peaked during their second decade of life. After that, it’s all downhill.

• Unruly Capital unveiled the first-ever real-time venture capital dashboard. Nice, just need to add valuations there and startup performance.

roleplay