Seeds (would) grow

Thanks for checking in - sorry for those who missed the letter yesterday. Saturday is also good, no? Most of you run the week meeting to another, chasing targets and KPIs. Saturday is perfect to reflect on how my weeks are going, am I doing the best work? What Eric Schmidt use to do with his coach, Bill Campbell.

The newsletter today is landing with more thoughts and fewer links

work in progress

• Reduce and recycle. Genius Sports made a call to close the Vilnius data centre and it looks like around 100 people are affected. Luckily Ignas and others share lists and obvs there is no lack of offers. The best practice to handle layoffs = take care of your people, which is help them get new jobs. Something more messy is happening with Game Insight, which is divesting operations in Russia.
• Pets. ZENOO is fundraising, Rocketo launches in Hong Kong, Boop connects pet owners and pet caregivers - a sort of pet super-app in the making.
• Economy where are you (we turned the music off early). A recession of sorts is around the corner, Martynas pulls some ideas on how to prepare. LT ecosystem is being punished for early-stage capital being hugely dependent on public funding - two accelerator funds having a gap (until end of the year), most local seed stage funds are at the end of deployment. Lithuanian angels are active in good times, but the majority are opportunistic and/or lifestyle investors. See Estonia as a comparison - 47 rounds by now, and around EUR 22m from local investors, when LT stands at 15 rounds and just a couple of millions raised locally!).  Even Dealroom data shows there is still plenty of capital (and ongoing action) in Europe.
• Media/Content. Lead generation on "rented" platforms is not necessarily sustainable, so the content remains king. Watalook adds a podcast, and so does jobRely (Startup Recruitment Failures). Pursuit of Scrappiness is co-hosted by Uldis Teraudkalns - must be good for his fintech startup Nextpay, especially recruitment. With regards to "AI meeting sales" - just follow Mindaugas Bružas (Oxus.AI) for his regular posts.