Talk the Walk

work in progress

• Media-related. Bored Panda 🇱🇹 2023 – stable revenue, stable profits. ANA 2.0 🇱🇹 is out, and that robot started reading newsletters (including ours). They are buying coffee for users who will stop by today (Tuesday) at Backstage to provide feedback (might be too late). Repsense 🇱🇹 is growing well, closed an investment round, Andriulis joins the team but might need to unlearn FB attention plays – startups ideally win by being better, not by trashing competitors right away.
• Foods and drinks. ÄIO is the Food Innovation award winner 🇪🇪 at Baltic Sustainability Awards. If Cal AI (calorie tracker app) is doing over $1m a month, Tadas started building Crunch 🇱🇹 (and hiring back-end engineer). ACALA 🇱🇹 is advertising with Rolls-Royce.
• FIXWARE, Josh formulates new Lux Capital thesis. They clearly missed out on Aerones 🇱🇻, such a promising scale-up. Aispeco 🇱🇹 has entertained us with both equity fundraise and a public grant, EUR 3.85m in total.

Fixware defines a category of technologies and approaches—predictive maintenance platforms, autonomous inspection drones, advanced sensors, and machine learning models that anticipate breakdowns and schedule repairs before chaos strikes.

• Ag. As 🇱🇹 Freya Cultivation Systems closed half-million seed, let's remember this vertical is large and growing. Paul-Tech 🇪🇪 expanded in the UK, signed with Dotnuva Baltic LT. Leafood 🇱🇹 is almost 50-people strong. 🇱🇹 AgroSync got Fiedler Capital backing this year.
• Timing or smthe else? Learning about $1M/MRR dinner club app, we are reminded of PlateCulture, started by Audra Pakalnyte and Reda Stare. Intro.co is reminder of Qoorio. Similar ideas, but different time, approach and execution – we will never know.
• Defence. For those building or investing – this talk with Helsing co-founder and CEO, Torsten Reil, is a must. End of January - Defence Hack Tallinn. Wayren 🇪🇪 joins NATO DIANA program 2025. Unmanned Defence Systems 🇱🇹 is the Innovator of the year. Space and Defence have been core topics for Coinvest Capital – exciting to see commitment for these key industries.
• People. Egle Eidimtaite, Tesonet CIO, is the first Lithuanian to join the PayPal Customer Advisory Board (CAD). Ieva joins Brite drinks as head of partnerships. Ugne is now VC at Nauta (B2B Software).

Sponsors

Meet our friends pushing the startup scene forward. Want to get involved 2025? Li

Cloudvisor [AWS partner dedicated to startups]
PayPal [Global integrated payments solution]
Vinted [largest C2C European marketplace, always hiring]
Tech Zity [tech hubs and campuses across Lithuania]
Presto Ventures [investing in startups – security, defense, aerospace]
Wargaming [award-winning game developer, careers]
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]

rounds and capital

• Goose Valley Ventures invests in finteh Torus 🇱🇹 (undisclosed amount). Torus is solving a lack of transparency regarding fees charged by card schemes like Visa and Mastercard, and has reached 1m ARR.
• Freya Cultivation Systems : EUR 500k seed 🇱🇹 (Coinvest Capital and BSV Ventures, along with companies Sofigama and Zunami Oy). Will build a demonstration greenhouse near Kaunas to showcase its three-dimensional Aeroframe greenhouse crop production system.
• Askel.ai: EUR 380k pre-seed 🇪🇪 (led by Superangel, includes ProcessOut co-founder Manuel Huez, Matrix partner Patrick Malatack, Veriff co-founder Janer Gorohhov, and Ott Kaukver, former CTO of Checkout.com and Twilio)
• After a scandal, Contribee gets sold to Masiva Group 🇱🇹 – investors were able to get back the funds invested earlier.

Ensure your AWS infrastructure runs smoothly with Cloudvisor's Monitoring Service! Their AWS-certified experts provide continuous, 24/7 monitoring to proactively identify and resolve issues. Benefit from real-time alerts and custom dashboards to maintain optimal performance and security.

Learn more about how Cloudvisor can keep your systems at peak performance: https://bit.ly/3Xe9Sdr

founder's guide

• How To Make The Most Out of Your 20s (YC video)
• Build a deck this way – from Matas, Coinvest Capital.
• Founder friendly: How to Sell (run sales, not sell the company)
• Too few founders think about product qualities that can accelerate growth. They should.
• Is this how you feel at Board Meetings?

further insights

• European benchmark for VC Compensation
• Kristjan Lepik (Arbonics), talking to President Toomas Hendrik Ilves
• Sweden's 100 best-paying companies
• Pulsar Factory Tour (group generates EUR 110m in revenue)
• YC year in review

• Christmas it is – Rockit team is enjoying Carbon Zero Super Hero board game that walks through the startup journey.
• Newsletters. Landsbergis will also use ghost for his newsletters. Viktorija (Coinvest Capital) starts writing English edition, too.

ecosystem

• Much appreciate all the work acc/eu guys are doing. But there is something hard to subscribe to – an idea, that regulations are holding Europe so much back. Definitely a lot to change and improve, but what if the biggest hurdle is actually around culture and mindset (ambition, risk-taking, entrepreneurship)? You can add and vote for ideas here.
  • This talk (12 mins) with Michael Jackson has some good takes.
• Locally, LitBAN is talking to VMI regarding double taxation on business angel syndicates, and how to incentivize angel investments.

roleplay