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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.

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  • 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

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)

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