A year like no other

work in progress

• Year of horror, anniversary. LT is so much more successful in raising funds for Ukraine (compared to venture), we should be proud - just gathered EUR 14m in crowdfunding for radars. How did Ukrainian tech survive the war? Speech from Andreas, CEO of Beetroot. Another story - how Welltech grew despite the war. Sifted talks to six founders.
• Fintech. 14 Fintechs investors are watching, including Amlyze. NFQ will build platform for BeMyBond. HeavyFinance launches Green Loans - is there a better angle than Climate Fintech these days? (AI+Climate we think). One LT Fintech has been hiring lately (graph below), can you guess which? In terms of the overall ecosystem, LB reports newcomer numbers keep growing. We will have someone to comment on this next week.

• Listen. Talk with LABA7, famous not only for the hardware they build but also for getting together 44 angels in an investment round. Superproduktas pod on product discovery with Dominyka from Vinted. POS talks to Printful co-founder - from a printer in the garage to EUR 300m revenue.
• People. Welcoming Viktorija Trimbel, new CEO of CoInvest Capital.
• AI. Vilnius to host Europe’s largest machine learning and data mining conference, ECML PKDD 2024. (expect some Patagonia vests in the lobby). Also in the AI world: Thousands of Lovers Executed for AI Safety. In the fast-moving water look for the 3rd wave of AI startups (Tome might classify).
• Calendar. Tech Sales Meetup, March 1st.

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rounds and capital

• With EIF joining as an LP, Contrarian Ventures is at EUR 57/100m.
• Google.org awarded a second grant to Women Go Tech. $800k is the largest grant for Google in the Baltics. WGT will be able to scale their programme beyond LT, empowering women to reskill in IT and engineering.
• Estonian Planet42 raises a ton of cash ($100m), 85% there is debt.
• FIRSTPICK partners with KOOS to run tokens - distribute 5% of team's carry to the community supporting them and portfolio startups.  

roleplay

insights

• Management saves lives (would certainly do the same in LT) - "Competitive process for choosing CEOs of Chilean public hospitals cut mortality in affected places by 8% by replacing doctors with trained managers."
• More on well-being. Health policy is an asset, not a cost! The biggest driver of recent UK labour force changes is long-term sickness.
• "Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars"- reports Economist:

Giulio Mattioli, a transport professor at Dortmund University, notes that almost nowhere in the world that has removed a big road, or pedestrianised a shopping street, has decided to reverse course. “Once people see [the benefits], they generally don’t want to go back.”

(Hold my beer - say candidates for Vilnius Mayor)

• Not many essays retain value over a longer time, but Solitude and Leadership does. "If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts".
• The most important Big Tech algorithm there? How couples meet.

founder's guide

• A reminder that the founder's journey is more than go big (unicorn) or go home (close). When scrolling the list of 800+ tech companies, the vast majority are sitting somewhere in the "struggle" zone.
• "What did Stripe do in the early days to build a strong brand" - nice try but forgets to mention that Collisons are quite a walking brand on its own.
• Raising pre-seed: what to say in "use of funds" slide
• Building your executive network ("relationships always work best when they’re built before you need them")

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