Wind of Change

What if drones and defence tech are the best longevity investments out there?

work in progress

• Building trade. Are there riches in the niches? For example, Eldorado helps buy game currencies, items, accounts and boosting, at >50% net profit margins and growing. Memstagram is officially featured in Coinbase Wallet. CoinGate (crypto payment gateway) keeps hiring the team, while the financial statement shows collapse in revenue to EUR 2.6m, in reality (guessing) switched from GMV reporting into real income. Axiology is pioneering financial market infrastructure designed for regulated securities – can really go big if circumstances / timing will align.
• Edtech. As nation turns to prayers for a competent incoming Minister of Education, Mantas Katinas points out a simple fact – the basic structure (4+6+2) is out of date, we have to switch to 6+3+3 (primary, lower secondary, upper secondary) now. Danielius Stasiulis explains how to leverage AI in education, there is literally no excuse when tools are available. (On a broader post-election note, Dalius Misiunas argues that government is critically lacking PMO / COO capacity to go beyond words and ideas). Back to edtech, we are keen to share more about STEAM Academy's journey – besides their growth, an internal tool has become a product of its own, Exoclass. EduChallenger is offering equity-free funding. For those starting edtech early, check Luloo – talking cards for learning new words.
• Food space continues to evolve. One should keep an eye on Biohifas (alternative proteins). Divaks in Paris selling their insect protein instead. Nuar is building a marketplace for local small producers – they should follow Delli, founded by Depop founder Simon Beckerman, possibly a more scalable approach. Tadas is building Crunch – looks pretty useful – the app scans products to fit your diet or avoid alergies, etc. Billoka brings another twist, they let users scan receipts from grocery stores to get health insights.

• Surveys. Would be awesome if Baltic founders fill influential Atomico's SOET survey, and the Founder Compensation Survey by Creandum – we would get some valuable insights later.
• Litigation. Evaldas Rimasauskas, Lithuanian, scammed Facebook and Google out of $122 million by sending them fake invoices; the best part is a comment from his wife... Now we thought to bring litigation as sub-topic as LT media going crazy after Foxpay / iSun scandal. Unfortunately reporters are incentivised to throw more wood into the fire, so trying to see if there is an issue with Amlyze co-founder G.Bilkstys. So far looks like nothing – this entrepreneur himself have been a victim of the same fraudster in an earlier venture.
• People. Julija joins BBright as fCMO. Mari Kuhi joins SmartCap as the new COO. Martynas and Gabriele (ex Change Ventures, Heartfelt) launched tooearly – academia for the first-time founders to get investment-ready.
• Podcasts recently –
  • Justinas Milašauskas, Willgrow
  • Rokas Peciulaitis, Contrarian Ventures
  • Andrius Milinavicius, Baltic Sandbox Ventures
  • Evaldas Remeikis, ERA Capital
• Calendar. Shopify meetup this Friday (25th Oct) with Orbio, Burga, Furniture1 – true heavyweights. Just after we talked about entrepreneurs building within that ecosystem.

sponsors

Meet our friends pushing the startup scene forward

Cloudvisor [AWS partner dedicated to startups]
PayPal [Global integrated payments solution]
Notion [Connected Workspace - try 6 months for free]
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

• Frontu gets acquired by Everfield. The leading field service management provider was started 11 years ago, raised little capital and recently became breakeven, reaching EUR 1m revenue last year. Congrats!
• WhiteBridge.ai raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding from FIRSTPICK, ScaleWolf, First Degree, and Nectolabs.
• Carbyne Equity Partners are investing (acquiring?) in Biomapas, a leading provider of clinical research and other services across Europe (EUR 20m revenue last year).
• Swedish node.vc closes EUR 71m first fund, and they are actively looking into the Baltics, too.
• Nter managed Alternative Lenders Fintech Fund spent EUR 2.5m to acquire 80% stake on Orion Leasing.
• smeGo has raised 25m EUR in financing (non-equity) from the tier 1 institutional investor in Germany.
• Coinvest Capital profit-sharing incentive was recognized by EBAN as a good practice.

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