Simple, not easy
Lithuania tech weekly #51
New Year = new dress for LT Tech Weekly
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What a year to close - and let's do it next week, anyways. One should never count the numbers too early: startup founders, just like the best students, close these rounds 2 hours before Christmas Eve. Here we go-
work in progress
- Christmas. All very cute and loving, of course. We liked Hostinger idea to get gifts from their customers (small online shops). Omnisend, after 10X their ARR, ditches plan for Model 3 and supports NGOs instead - primarily Teachers Lead Tech.
- Christmas in Latvia, too - a massive year with almost EUR 250m raised and several new scale-ups emerging (Printify, Localize, Whimsical)
- Brands. Which Lithuanian startup brands do people know? Audrius makes some hard choices based on google trends. With B2B SaaS being Baltics' sweet spot for a while, we might need another list. (Also a list for pet brands - Dogo just raised, Rocketo opened a store, and Zenoo added CMO)
- Media. Several LT entrepreneurs on Innovators Can Laugh podcast. Year in review on Pursuit of Scrappiness, with Jone (SWG) among others. Rokas (Contrarian Ventures) on VZ podcast (LT, paywall). Socialhack podcast with Sarunas Sakalauskas on big social trends (LT). Video (LT) with Andrius Biceika (Revolut), who explains the power of stock options (Unicorns LT working on more legal improvements). Many European tech newsletters in this thread.
rounds and capital
- Change Ventures lead a $3M seed round for Dogo. Top global dog training app and Berlin headquartered startup with three Lithuanian and one Estonian co-founders (+ dev team in Kaunas). Co-investors include Monkfish Equity, Justas Janauskas and Gabija Grusaite, as well as prior round investors Leap Venture Studio & Academy and APX.
- LigenceAI will receive a total of EUR 4.4 m (grant and investment) from EIC Accelerator. Overall a good year by the team!
- HeavyFinance raises $1 m to expand the marketplace further. Led by Poland’s Black Pearls VC and saw co-investments from bValue and Startup Wise Guys. Several angel investors including Marius Krikštopaitis (StartupHighway) and Adrian Watson (CFO at Lendable) also participated in the round.
- Nanoenergija (Viezo) raises EUR 800k round from CoInvest Capital, together with business angels and Swiss fund.
- Ohm!boocha secured EUR 600k via CoInvest Capital and 7 business angels. Vikonda Group contributed to the transaction as a strategic investor.
- NO-CV raises EUR 212k from LitBAN, LatBAN and other angels.
- Tesonet, along with Invalda INVL, and ME Investicija to acquire 18% stake in Siauliu Bankas from EBRD.
founder guide
- Scaling. What I Learned About People that Scale
- Julian Shapiro - Writing Well Handbook
- Beware The Overly Self-Promotional CMO
insights
- Meaning. Gig workers find meaning by creating games - focused on efficiency, or service. Pattern from factory workers.
- Speed of sound. Looking globally - there will be more startups, they grow bigger, and they grow (at least in value) much, much faster.
- Rise of 10X class. When “imperfect substitution” is combined with “joint consumption technologies,” the result is “the possibility for talented persons to command both very large markets and very large incomes
- House Money partly explains crypto investment flows. The space is wild, but we are concerned too much talent is doing speculation (instead of innovation).
- Europe's wealthiest founders, on paper (Sifted)
roleplay
GoRamp - Head of People
Woola - Head of Marketing (Estonian, just raised)
Podbase (Print On Demand Service) - CEO
ecosystem
One simple boost for this little country is to become more demanding for the public sector. For that you equally have to become more rewarding - and government should be attractive for our top talent. Now after each election we get a new CEO (Prime Minister) with ambitious plans and... 50% of required payroll budget. Fixing this system must be top priority - otherwise we will see reforms fail due to human factors.
Let's end here wishing this Christmas miracle next year. Have a lovely day and thanks for being loyal readers!
P.S. Many thanks Rasa, Arūnas, Odilija for the mentions
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