Often in circles

Follow on X and LinkedIn
How to join an emerging startup? Find them here (50 positions)
Want to subscribe?
Sponsors and paid subscribers - add many of your friends here
Others - welcome to add one friend here
Got this forwarded? Join the waitlist or upgrade here.
work in progress
- Climate/energy. While Sunly Future Ventures learned that Baltics don't produce a ton of pipeline, these teams are showing progress with new capital raised: Fusebox, EUR 2.6m (Contrarian Ventures portco), GridRaven - EUR 4m (CEO relocating to Austin, Texas), Gridio - EUR 2.4m (Vladas Lašas' angel portco), and Latvian Naco Technologies - EUR 2.5m. Which other startups to watch? For Ag / Forest economy – HeavyFinance, Arbonics, eAgronom, Ecobase. Up Catalyst, Raiku, Woola for materials. Perhaps now also Renewabl, co-founded by Nikolaj Martyniuk, or Stuart Energy (both joined Plug & Play). PVcase can always surprise us with another acquisition, and Inbalance Grid may accelerate in Poland.
- Sports tech. Nikita built KumiteTechnology – a platform for sports tournaments (like karate), searching for a co-founder. KULG is Estonian startup – they help runners train better – and now integrates with Strava. P.S. All sports tech Baltics.
- Edtech. EduTalks series starts tomorrow. Interview with Emilija, co-founder of Alfa Erdve. Mathos (BSV portco) and Flashka (Estonia) among top 50 to pitch at Techchill in Riga. Sobeck transforms boring educational content into a stimulating experience for ADHD brain – users to test their Beta release.
- Winners of Estonian Startup Awards, and winners of Vilnius TechFusion Awards.
- Sharks offered to back Speekz.app (EUR 150k), which solves the problem of people at home alone watching Home alone – in a fun way. Godspeed!
- People. Ugne joins the investment team at byFounders, heading to Riga to meet you. Gytis, after closing Minthive chapter, joins Blizy as a COO (electronics) resale Helery Pops is not actively investing at the moment. Lukas joins Spike Technologies as Senior AE. Vaidotas is now Chief Risk Officer at Oxylabs. Audrius Milukas joins Superhero Capital as Partner. Jahid leaves Fiedler Capital.
sponsors
making Tech Philomaths possible

Cloudvisor [AWS partner dedicated to startups]
PayPal [Global integrated payments solution]
Oxylabs [Step into the world of web data gathering]
Vinted [Largest C2C European marketplace, hiring]
Tech Zity [tech hubs and campuses across Lithuania]
Presto Ventures [investing in startups – security, defense, aerospace]
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]
Wargaming [award-winning game developer, careers]
rounds and capital
- Fusebox (Estonia, Contrarian portco) secured EUR 2.6m in funding to accelerate its expansion across Europe. Round led by Soulmates Ventures with SmartCap, Eneco Ventures, PKO Bank.
- Gridio — smart charging platform – EUR 2.4M led by Neokapital, with support from Encevo , SmartCap, Renergy, and existing investors.
- Gridraven has raised EUR 4m from 42CAP and Icebreaker.vc, expands to US.
- Civinity acquired the remaining 49% shares of Valandinis, a platform for freelance construction specialists.
- Eliq, a Swedish smart energy software company (Contrarian Ventures and Vilnius office) secured funding from Volvo Cars Tech Fund.
- Tallinn-based Elcogen secures EUR 5m from SmartCap to accelerate growth.
- Siim with Lemonade Stand made 7 new investments in 2024; and more follow-ups. SMOK fund show where deals come from – it's mostly immediate network and intros.
three questions
Founders Ignas Gecevičius and Martynas Krupskis, basedspace_

Where did the inspiration for basedspace_ come from - was there something missing in Vilnius?
The inspiration came from already existing examples in the US, like Founders Inc. Martynas actually started his current startup, Compass Wearable, while being in their community for a few months. As for myself, I was studying/living/working (worked in HelloFresh, a publicly traded company) in Amsterdam for 3 years. After seeing how startup scene there operates (events, communities that push each other to build, support from bigger companies) I was assured something like that could work in LT as well given we have lots of crazy talent individually, but a more introverted nature, which sometimes makes us less risk-averse than usual or being more hesitant to take that first shot of action. Me and Martynas knew each other since high school and after I came back from NL and he came back from Founders Inc. I was suggesting him of actually creating a similar community in LT. Very quickly we got in touch with Tech Zity people and they kindly gave us a space to start our community. I think it's important to note that from initial contact to having first people physically in space happened within a span of 1 month
What kind of builders benefit from joining basedspace_ most?
We try to maintain an even balance of different types of builders - some of them are 'indie hackers' who can build a micro-SaaS from idea to product within few weeks, while others are more focused towards long-term 'unicorn dream' startups, being more visionary and taking more strategic steps within the process. Most of our people are technical themselves or have technical people working with them full-time, even though being technical isn't our required checklist item. Therefore, any type of builder / founder can benefit from what our space has to offer.
Tech and startup building is changing - how it will be different in 2025?
I think with all the crazy pace that AI is developing, agents / tools / copilots make building for everyone way more accessible and significantly faster. It sort of lowers the barrier to entry and allows smaller teams or even solopreneurs to be super fast, efficient and flexible. In my opinion, the key skill to building effectively nowadays is to have a "taste" for what's working in one's stack and what's not, cause it's easy to get overwhelmed by all the flashy, "sell-y" softwares that are flooding in the market right now. Consequently, I think that in 2025 we'll see way more people trying to build their own startups, whether it's a niche AI solution or just lifestyle business that someone wanted to start for years!
founder's guide
- Building a startup, but in music (especially if you like MGMT): when your first MVP works, and when you IPO 10 years after.
- AI is breaking the B2B marketing model that worked for 20 years

- Where will a marketing career take you? If you are lucky to land a CMO role in the end, make sure to splash on that rebranding.
- 5 pitfalls every AI-native B2B solution needs to overcome
- When there is gazzilion ways to be productive, perhaps be creative?. When IPAD was launched, Monocle started the magazine. Sacca talk.
- In a world where everyone can spin up any website, newsletter, social post in seconds, what will you consume? Something that educates you better, or perhaps entertains you best. Be interesting.
- Also, worry less

further insights
- Market Makers. Abraham Thomas has a good new piece on how VCs operate as market makers (makes you learn futures trading before that..)

- Deepseek. It seems everything that comes from China can be low-cost, but comes at the cost. Cost of environment, cost of labour rights, cost of IP protection.. and in Deepseek's case, cost of truth? Censorship it is. (Looks like that is a postprocessor that censors the model result, the underlying model might be ok)

- AI + CEE. AI synthetic voice startup ElevenLabs has reportedly raised $250m at a $3bn valuation. The funny part is that it was founded in 2022 by Google and Palantir alumni, originally from Poland. Does it make it a "Polish startup"? Klarna's founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski (born in Upsalla in 1981 in Polish family) having a good laugh.

ecosystem
- Alex wrote few notes on airport experiences, which resonated deeply. Meaning, why it has to be so painful? What is that ground-breaking cost difference that justifies running buses instead of using sleeves? And how do people come with "creative ideas" of opening yet another dull duty-free shop, with boring perfumes and Toblerone? Such a wasted opportunity to represent a city in an interesting way.
- OECD literacy report – this is beyond red flags.
- Ok, sorry, something positive – first Lithuanian animation on Disney+ – The Perfect Fit.
- Also, hearing a lot of positive feedback (here, here) from Hackathon organized by State Data Agency. Way to go!!
Tech Philomaths' community
- NEW: Lithuanian founders in US building something new. We found 15 names.
- Lean and Mean - small profitable Baltic tech firms
- Baltic Founders with YC experience
- Startup lists for the Baltics - Drone startups, Marketplaces, Sportstech
- Repeat Lithuanian founders - 40+ serial founders building now
roleplay
Oxylabs - Engineering Manager
Oxylabs - Head of Account Management
edON - Head of Business Development
Walk15 - Graphic Designer
Smartproxy - Multiple roles
Idea Link - Full Stack Developer
Atrandi Biosciences - Business Development Manager
Origin Robotics - All kind of Engineers (Latvia)
CTO2B - Senior Full-Cycle Account Executive
Memby - Sales Team Lead
Unicorns Lithuania - Economic & Policy Expert
Popcorn - Founding Product Designer
Member discussion