Stork and Wolf

work in progress

• Accounting. Per Moller launches JIGLO, to automate account and reporting for service business. Solving these pains allowed Robolabs to sustain growth. But where is the ultimate dynamite for this industry? ChatGPT and their friends.
• Fintech to regtech? Congrats SME Finance, fintech of the year! The annual fintech report is out, it finds 260+ firms with 7,000 people employed and really good growth in revenues (80%). What next? Mindaugas Petrauskas on turning AML around with prevention framework. Jekatarina calls for regtech as overall industry strategy. It's never boring with compliance - UK fintech with LT ops Railsr is reportedly close to being sold through an insolvency process.
• Edtech. TLT is launching America - starting with pilot schools spring 2023. In Edtech, Baltics need to catchup more - you will see in Nordic-Baltic special report (by Nordic Edtech News & Brighteye Ventures). New in town - CatZu, started in Belarus, a mobile speech assistant that helps improve preschool children's speech and oral motor skills.
• Europe 1000. The FT fastest-growing list come with #17 PayRay Bank, #27 carVertical, #461 Hostinger, #829 Oxylabs, and a few other LT firms.
• Pods. A couple of really good listens - PoS talk with Audrius Zujus, co-founder and CTO Argyle, and EU VC with Siim Teller on all things Lemonade Stand and Baltic scene.

rounds and capital

• Inbalance grid has raised EUR 1.3 m from Business Angels Fund II, the Spanish electric mobility fund EIT, the Civinity Group, and others (with the help of Orion Securities). Recently they signed another EUR 1.5m deal with Equite to build EV charging infrastructure.
• The government defence fund has made the choice - EUR 13.5m is dedicated to ScaleWolf, accelerator and VC funds. The teams behind are not yet announced, we see Rokas Tamosiunas (OCC) and Edvinas Kerza.
• Donatas Dailide explains the family office and how they do early-stage startup investments.

*we are also exploring a billboard solution in Vilnius

roleplay

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founder's guide

• "Most founders don’t really need help with what they think they need" - do you agree?
• Getting co-founder setup right - learnings from Turing College
• How to attract an audience for your product
• Seedchecks - submit your deck to reach 16 investors at once. Update your LinkedIn before sending.

further AInsight

• Dovydas Celiutka on AI in LT - sums up in "revolution is happening and we don't have any plan, and likely ideas"
• 2023 MAD Landscape - Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Data
• "There’s one thing that we can be pretty sure about: the genie is not going back in the lamp"
• Talking productivity gains:

ecosystem

• EU countries allocated EUR3.75 B for scaling tech, but "why does a post lamenting innovation in the EU inadvertently highlight the problem in the EU?"

• Rest of World runs a story about Belarussian tech in exile - reporting from Vilnius.

“My current hope is that in any year, in five years, in two years, in 10 years, when Belarus becomes a country which follows the law, I will come back,” said the Vilnius-based startup founder. “Or the alternative — I don’t know. Maybe we build this new digital Belarus and we could be a Belarusian in any country.”

• How Helsinki became the mobile gaming capital of the world (notes for Benkunskas? or Zuokas?):

Companies and developers are not offered major tax incentives or significantly higher salaries to set-up shop in Helsinki. Huurre says the sell is more straightforward than that. "Helsinki is known for its work/life balance, we have a good life here," she says. "We are very ambitious with our work, but we like our free time so much we're very efficient in our work time, there are few nonsense meetings.

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