Who Made Who | Lithuania Tech Weekly #14

Tech philomaths are direct and dedicated reporting on the tech scene in Lithuania. Weekly newsletter. Better informed, more dense network, and getting more people into tech. Send us tips and we are happy to cover. Subscribe to the list at http://philomaths.tech/

0% tech

magic 100%

Say hello to our new feature - voting poll. We invite you to express your opinion on this piece and let's see if you'll match with the other readers. Slide me! Slide me gooood!

Work in progress

In remote-first Argyle, quite a few Lithuanians are doing the heavy-lifting. Great design work across the board.
Billo app is deploying the funds raised – has trippled the team in the last 6 months and hiring more. Just like CGTrader, Omnisend, they are selling shovels in a gold rush (powering e-commerce).
Talk to Oxylabs if considering Salesforce for your team, they seem to have nailed automation there.
PayRay Bank gets EU-backing (EUR 50 m) to expand access to finance for Lithuanian SMEs.
European (and American) growth VCs found another battleground: on-demand grocery delivery. The last one has been Zapp, with $ 100 m by Atomico and LSVP. Anyhow, more than a billion euros havebeen deployed with Gorillas, Getjir, and others – in a couple of months.
- We should be hearing from Ziticity (expanding in Poland) and LastMile soon (closing the round).
Creator economy is on fire. In January we mentioned Patreon – their valuation was around $ 1.2 B. On Wednesday they secured round F, another $ 155 m, but – at $ 4 B valuation. What’s happening? The second Renaissance is here – says Jack Conte in this fun video.
- Where is that Contribee deck?
- What’s next for Qoorio?
- Looking beyond – Adobe’s Scott Belsky explains (HBR podcast) how creative work is more important than ever and looks at “creative centers” vs. “power centers”.
Looks like Fly Now Pay Later, UK fintech which raised $ 42 m series A last year, is about to land Lithuanian office.
We do believe founders should tackle big problems, but electrification is also a huge opportunity for economic growth. Repaint the map – noticed Rokas

Rounds and capital

One of the largest Lithuanian startups, Hostinger International, brings two strategic investors – Jochen Berger and Thomas Strohe – to further accelerate growth. Very large round for sure, but unfortunately not public in numbers.
- New investors (ConHostinger GmbH) secured a 31% stake in the company. Tesonet founders increased their holding from 36% to 39.4%
- Founder of Hostinger, Arnas Stuopelis, commented that “this is a unicorn in the making”. The company had EUR 22,3 m revenue last year, growing 2X annually in the last few years.
Mano Daktaras secures EUR 260k investment for further telehealth growth, after Pincetas acquisition. The round involves Tesonet, Milda Mitkute (Vinted), Viasana, Media Bites and others.
Tesonet is investing into CAST.AI and will accelerate it further by sharing the resources they have. Numbers not disclosed.
- (essentially, it is Tesonet behind every deal these days. Powerhouse)
Coinvest Capital announces (in LT) EUR 4 m added to the fund to focus on sustainability and green tech.

Digital health and healthcare

The list of Healthtech and Digital Health startups in Lithuania

Our other blog posts

How to find business angels in Lithuania
Which growth stage VCs (Series A onwards) are active in Lithuania? We look at the deals in the past 3 years.
Non-Lithuanian and remote-first scale-ups here
- Just added Chronosphere, which is hiring more to the small Vilnius office. Series B startup with more than $55M in funding and backed by VC firms Greylock, Lux Capital General Atlantic, and investor Lee Fixel. The team is distributed with major hubs in New York, Seattle and Vilnius.

Founder guides

No ideas? Something truly simple for how to find startup ideas and assess them. If that doesn’t help, try out Trends.vc, Software Ideas, Gaps, and Trends.co.
Markets. Good concepts and frameworks for expanding across borders. Why fintech is local not global? What is an “internet nation”?
Can’t close the round. You’re not alone, as the venture partners are increasingly running after few strong signals, creating polarization. Here’s why there are two worlds and what to do.
Product Roadmap. How to plan your project strategically

Roleplay

We want early-stage teams to succeed – let us know if you’re recruiting core team or starting something new.

Track-POD – VP of Marketing
Engineers and everything else needed for Interactio
FATMAP (outdoor adventure platform) expanding the team, they are split between Berlin, Vilnius and Chamonix

Insights

More about how Trafi operates (interview with Martynas Gudonavicius)
Decision-making and organizational structure (by Mindaugas Mozūras)
How Technology and Covid-19 Are Reinventing Education. If we replace “education” with “learning” – opportunities become more visible.
Love this Notary Museum idea. Might be the first in the world (in LT)
See how Bhutan rolls AstraZeneca vaccine (763k population)

Ecosystem

As Martin Villig tackles the question “what has contributed most to the Estonian startup ecosystem”, some interesting data points and discussion in comments.
Lithuania tops the list of European countries with the largest absolute growth in household disposable incomes over 2015-2020. However, inequality has followed the trend and increased, too (data by Fransua-Vytautas Razvadauskas)