Winter sprint

Lithuania Tech Weekly #210
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How to join an emerging startup? Find them here (50 positions)
Want to subscribe?
Sponsors and paid subscribers - add many of your friends here
Got this forwarded? Join the waitlist or upgrade here.
work in progress
- Funnel. Dealroom 2024 Lithuania report is out, looking alright (up and to right, if not – then following the market). With regards to scale-ups (future unicorn box), it is so much easier to track ones that pick venture rounds along the way, but there is more to surface. What might be Hostinger valuation, which is growing 57%, with EUR 110m revenue in 2023? What is the valuation of Oxylabs, approaching (exceeding?) similar rev levels? While Omnisend can't yet command Klaviyo public multiple (13.5x), it would still be very high given the current $50m ARR. Even e-commerce hit Burga expanded 50% last year (2024) and reached $80m in revenue. Also, CAST AI logo (60 people in LT) would fit here well, but that Miami HQ is seemingly a problem.

- Mental health. With Calmio, this team is building AI-driven grief counsellor. Interview (video) with Natasha Chobat, a Belarusian software engineer turned tech founder based in Lithuania, who co-founded Thera, an AI-powered self-therapy and journaling app. Rasa is building humaning – mood-tracking app. FittyAI offers MS Teams Active Break Challenge – go stretch to avoid going crazy.
- Sports. Motion Trials team is finally bringing SPRINT – a new timing device for athletes, football, and basketball players, to measure and track speed performance. 15min reports that Tesonet is considering acquiring 10% of Boston Celtics shares.
- Space. Delta Biosciences is bringing life sciences to space, via NASA research program (also added Ona to the team). Years ago, Vladas Lasas backed Orbex as angel, now UK government steps into series D. Blackswan Space is testing their VBN with ESA.
- Getting going with AI. Kinnevik on AI in the New Nordics – including talent pools locally. How to make sales call enrichment with AI. 3 Levels of AI Adoption in Software Development by Lukas. How Whatagraph founders approach AI. AI Meetup in Kaunas – today already (Wed). There is likely more demand for AI in government than we think.
Good take on AI + Domain Expertise: The AI boom has created the biggest gap in technical expertise and subject-matter expertise

- Snowball. Kipras updated: Lithuania's Unicorn Snowball Effect: 2025 Q1. To accelerate with more liquidity (limited effect so far from Vinted secondaries). Also, don't compare these two directly, they mint new ventures in different ways (Tesonet builds multiple ventures in-house, various stages, including new and hot nexos.ai.)

- People. Gabriele joins Balnord, will be based in Berlin. Frankenburg Expands to Lithuania and appoints former vice-minister Karolis Zemaitis as Managing Director. Justas is now Sales Team lead at smeGO. Lukas, Head of Bored Panda Studios, is departing the company. Juste joins Astrato Analytics as VP of Marketing.
- New Nordics. byFounders New Nordics report is out, and it reminds 21/22 cohorts have been having a hard time. The Baltics are not shining in 2024, as the report applies a stricter methodology than what we like to use (covers only investments from tech-focused VCs and requires companies to have their headquarters in the country).

rounds and capital
- Raimonds is about to launch BADideas.fund, closed $22M in total.
- In Tartu, SafePAS secured EUR 450K+ from BSV Ventures, Estonian Business Angels Network (EstBAN) and Beamline Accelerator.
- BrachyDOSE also secured up to EUR 50k from EstBAN.
- New European funds – Cherry raised EUR 500m for early-stage (but don't read this newsletter – so you've got advantage), Angular Ventures $125M Fund III.
sponsors

Cloudvisor [AWS partner dedicated to startups]
Hostinger [making online presence accessible to everyone worldwide, hiring]
PayPal [Global integrated payments solution]
Oxylabs [Step into the world of web data gathering]
Vinted [Largest C2C European marketplace, hiring]
Presto Ventures [investing in startups – security, defense, aerospace]
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]
Wargaming [award-winning game developer, careers]
founder's guide
- Deck of Boardy AI, which raised $8m seed from Creandum
- Vojta (Presto) talks about backing CEE founders, including how important is market for early-stage. A ton of good resources for founders here, too.
- Key things to consider when you relocate employees – starting with empathy
- Use this GTM Deck for your team – template from Blossom.
- How to work with Executive Coach
- Mario Gabriele (if you know The Generalist) productivity stack

further insights
- Spend less time alone, please
- Asking Dubai Moguls How They Got Rich – and getting Antanas Guoga sharing about $300m net worth + life wisdom.
- Man convicted of drunk-driving a drone in Sweden’s first case of its kind
- Everything that happened in deeptech in 2024
- 12 things LPs should know about venture capital. Selected three:
- 1/ VC is highly cyclical, alternating between long risk-on periods followed by sudden risk-off periods. Trying to time things is a fools errand, which is why consistency across vintages is required.
- 6) Recent posts suggesting that $100M-$500M funds are in "no man's land" are both incorrect and correct at the same time. This applies to firms lacking advantages in brand, domain expertise, or network. There's significant value for founders raising Series A from high-quality mid-cap managers who can provide quality senior partner support.
- 12) For seed funds having a real edge in sourcing & winning deals can> picking ability. Brand/distribution matter.
ecosystem
- Like this take about Europe. Stop that doom and gloom.
- We have argued here that ROI on AI skills is huge. But what exactly to teach?


roleplay
Early-stage startup jobs (50+) Baltics, don't miss opportunities like:
Hostinger - Marketing Data Analytics Team Lead
Oxylabs - Engineering Manager
Oxylabs - Head of Account Management
Hostinger - Risk Manager
Unicorns Lithuania - Economic & Policy Expert
Ministry of Economy - Commercial Attache in Los Angeles
Popcorn - Founding Product Designer
NFQ - Marketing Manager
VIALET - multiple roles
Hostinger - Marketing Data Analytics Team Lead
Oxylabs - Engineering Manager
Oxylabs - Head of Account Management
Hostinger - Risk Manager
Unicorns Lithuania - Economic & Policy Expert
Ministry of Economy - Commercial Attache in Los Angeles
Popcorn - Founding Product Designer
NFQ - Marketing Manager
VIALET - multiple roles
Member discussion