Postindustrial revolution

work in progress

• Five. Big congrats 300+ wonderful LitBAN angelsmaking a difference - and celebrating a fifth birthday. We had Justinas answering a few important questions earlier. Great reminder from FiBAN's new CEO:

Angel investing in your homeland is a patriotic act.

• New. Jonas is building Fiestos, with a powerful pitch - "build an event calendar....wait for it....inside a google calendar"! More new kids on the block via FIRSTPICK batch, such as app to fix and improve your Mercedes, e-commerce platform for furniture industry, and others.
• Health. Cybernews and also Healthnews, is Tesonet affinity for wellbeing growing? Mybe, A mindfulness app that helps children find focus, calm down and fall asleep, is part of SSE incubator in Stockholm. MedAccelerator launches in Kaunas.
• AI. There is a vast array of impactful challenges for GPT-4, including saving language in Iceland. Locally working with Panevezys, Neurotechnology developed an AI tool to monitor and predict job openings - NetGeist HR. We are pretty excited about AI copilot use, and how it will unlock talent. Now everyone can craft a perfect email (in multiple languages), build websites and apps, and that's not even going into machines or robots (soon). Only one but - who will train the teachers, to teach AI tools? And we mean teachers not for kids - someone has to train adults and the elderly.
• Down. With Arrival facing headwinds globally, they are closing down the electric motor manufacturing plant in Lithuania (team of 42). Expanding EV players - Altas Auto, Elinta Charge and Elinta Motors - might benefit from experienced staff.

rounds and capital

• Sound - CAST AI secured $20M round, led by Creandum (and includes $5m from existing investors). Since the platform launch, CAST AI has experienced staggering quarter-by-quarter revenue growth of over 220%. It's the first one for Creandum in LT - besides Mavenoid which has a Lithuanian co-founder/CTO.
• Futurecraft Ventures is investing in fintech Monerchy, as the startup is aiming to close $2m in the seed round. Small team and perhaps newcomers to Vilnius?
• Recognizing new LT founders need a bit more credibility, network (and confidence?), the government is bringing an internationally acclaimed accelerator to Vilnius - via EUR 13m tender. You can submit below your thoughts on this.
• Business Angels Fund is still actively investing, and Daiva Rakauskaite takes the lead of managing it.

roleplay

founder's guide

• Magnus on how it's easy to make your startup fragile
• Global Marketing Playbook from Hubspot and Localise
• Cash Management at Startups

further insights

• Interview with Rokas, Contrarian Ventures, on all you need to know about climate and venture and why they are so bullish on this thesis (in LT)
• Superproduktas podcast with Tomas Peluritis, Head of data at kevin.

friends

• The Pursuit of Scrappiness Podcast
• AWS + Startups = Cloudvisor (save on your bills!)
• Nordic AI Weekly - newsletter by Emmet King (J12)
• Swedish Tech weekly, Norwegian Tech

three questions, previously

• Darius Zakaitis, Founder & CEO, Tech Zity
• Roman Novacek, Partner, Presto Ventures
• Lina Zakarauskaite, Principal, Stride.VC
• Justinas Pasys, Managing Director, LitBAN
• Magnus Hambleton, Investor, byFounders
• Povilas Poderskis, Development Director, Darnu Group, ex-COO Nord Security
• Gytenis Galkis, Venture Partner, Superhero Capital
• Daniel Kratkovski and Dominykas Milašius, co-founders, Delta Biosciences
• Kasparas Aleknavicius - Co-Founder and CPO, Loctax
• Andrius Milinavičius, General Partner, Baltic Sandbox Ventures
• Laura Korsakova, Founder and CEO, Psylink
• Paulius Uziela, Investment Manager, Coinvest Capital

we are listening