Estonia has long been hailed as European innovation’s golden child, boasting the highest number of startups and unicorns per capita.
Skype, Bolt and Wise are among the household names to emerge from the tiny Baltic country. While Estonia remains on top of many European startup rankings — it’s not alone anymore. The neighbouring Lithuania and Latvia are catching up quickly, making the entire region an intriguing target for international investors.
As with the rest of Europe, however, the economic slowdown stunted the Baltics. In 2023, Baltic startups raised $517m, according to Dealroom – a 70% decrease from 2022. But in investors’ eyes, the ecosystem is booming.
So, which startups could be the next to make waves in the Baltics? To find out, Sifted asked VCs from Change Ventures, Tera Ventures, Firstpick, Baltic Sandbox Ventures and Practica Capital. The only rule: they couldn’t nominate portfolio companies.
Andris Berzins, Change Ventures
Change Ventures is a Riga-based pre-seed VC firm backing Baltic founders globally.
Pactum
Founded: 2019
HQ cities: Mountain View and Tallinn
Pactum develops AI to automatically negotiate supplier contracts on a massive scale for big companies. Its system learns the value of contract terms and performs high-quality and considerate negotiations to reach a favourable outcome for both parties. The company has been on Sifted’s radar since it raised $1.15m in pre-seed funding in 2019. Since then, it’s raised $35.2m from investors such as Atomico and Project A, according to Dealroom.
Ovoko
Founded: 2016
HQ city: Vilnius
Ovoko is an online marketplace for used car parts. It offers shipping across Europe and a 14-day money-back guarantee. It has teams in Lithuania, Poland, Latvia and Ukraine. In total, it’s raised $21.2m from VCs like Lithuania’s Practica Capital, Poland’s Market One Capital and the UK’s Piton Capital, according to Dealroom.
Patchstack
Founded: 2017
HQ city: Pärnu, Estonia
Patchstack is a cybersecurity startup which develops a tool that helps identify bugs and security vulnerabilities in web content management system WordPress’ websites, plugins and themes. It’s raised $2.1m in equity and grants, from VCs like Estonia’s Trind Ventures and Honey Badger Capital.
Andrus Oks, founding partner at Tera Ventures
Tera is an Estonian VC investing out of a €45m second fund into pre-seed global startups. Tera has a focus on AI/ML and fintech.
GScan
Founded: 2019
HQ city: Tallinn
GScan is developing a new kind of 3D-imaging scanner. It uses naturally occurring atmospheric radiation to make detectors, which are powered by subatomic particles produced when cosmic rays hit the Earth’s atmosphere. The scanners are designed to create safe radiation that doesn’t harm people in the surrounding area when scanners are used. The startup has raised $10.8m of equity funding and grants — most recently a $3m seed round from Markus Villig, the cofounder of mobility giant Bolt.
Value.Space
Founded: 2022
HQ cities: London and Tallinn
Value.Space develops technology that allows for monitoring and detecting anomalies in large infrastructure objects — think mines or dams — thanks to the data gathered by satellites. The startup raised an oversubscribed $2.1m seed round from VCs including Helsinki-based Inventure and Shanghai-based Amalfi Fund.
KOOS
Founded: 2021
HQ city: Viimsi.
KOOS is a legal and technological solution for giving non-employee contributors stakes in a business via virtual shares. Unlike actual or ‘real’ shares, virtual shares do not give holders ownership in a business but can be turned into cash upon a certain triggering event, such as a public listing or acquisition. Success is only shared when the business reaches its goals, however, so the service acts as an incentive for contributors to stick around and help the company grow — like stock options hope to do for employees. KOOS has raised €4m from VC firms Plural, LocalGlobe and Superangel, plus angel investors including Entrepreneur First cofounder Matt Clifford.
Andra Bagdonaitė, partner at Firstpick
Vilnius-based Firstpick is an early-stage VC investing out of a €20m fund. It has a sector-agnostic approach and focuses on the Baltics.
Saltz
Founded: 2022.
Headquarters: Vilnius.
Saltz is a platform that connects premium food producers and chefs from across Europe. Using the app, cooks can buy produce without middlemen or distributors, getting a broader assortment, lower prices and fresher products.
Evergrowth
Founded: 2022
HQ city: Vilnius
Evergrowth is an AI-powered sales platform. It provides sales teams with deeper, actionable insights into accounts and prospects, facilitating targeted and personalised engagements. It raised a €2m pre-seed round in February, led by US VC Impellent Ventures and Lithuania’s Practica Capital, according to Dealroom.
HeavyFinance
Founded: 2020
HQ city: Vilnius
Heavy Finance is a platform that connects small and medium-sized farming businesses with a global investor community to generate soil carbon credits. It’s raised $5.7m from VCs like Lithuania’s Practica Capital, Poland’s Black Pearls and bValue, according to Dealroom.
Sandra Golbreich, partner at Baltic Sandbox Ventures
Baltic Sandbox Ventures is a Vilnius-based VC with a €13m fund. It backs early-stage deeptech and life science startups from across the Baltics.
Delta Biosciences
Founded: 2020
HQ city: Vilnius
Delta Biosciences develops a next-generation screening platform to accelerate new drug discovery through miniaturising functional assays and exponentially expanding the chemical space.
Viezo
Founded: 2018
HQ city: Vilnius
Viezo develops a vibration energy harvesting solution, capable of converting vibrations into electricity — to power wireless Internet of Things (IoT) sensors without batteries. The self-sustainable sensors can be used as an alternative to battery power in infrastructure, oil, gas and mining, industry and transportation. The startup has raised $1.1m to date from VCs like Dutch Rockstart Capital and Lithuania’s Coinvest Capital.
RSI Europe
HQ City: Vilnius.
Founded: 2022.
RSI Europe develops and manufactures remotely controlled systems for the defence sector. It aims to deliver remote strike capabilities for the battlefield. Its flagship products are a remote explosives initiation system and a first-person view drone.
Donatas Keras, Partner at Practica Capital
Vilnius-based Practica Capital is an early-stage VC supporting entrepreneurs in the Baltics from seed — and selected pre-seed — to Series A by investing in initial tickets of up to €3m.
Turing College
Founded: 2020.
HQ city: Vilnius.
Turing College is an online data science career school. It offers career bootcamp programmes in machine learning, data science, analytics, data engineering and web development. It also offers a fully-fledged online Data Science & Analytics Master’s degree. It’s raised $2.9m from investors such as Y Combinator and Estonia’s Startup Wise Guys.
Trace.Space
Founded: 2022.
HQ cities: San Francisco and Riga
Trace.Space helps companies that work on complex hardware products to manage engineering requirements. For example, the processes on how engineering teams plan, keep track of and communicate changes in requirements throughout the product development lifecycle. It has raised $1.5m from VCs such as Hungary’s Fiedler Capital and Latvia’s Change Ventures.
Supersimple
Founded: 2021
HQ city: Tallinn
Supersimple is a data analytics platform for B2B SaaS companies that helps teams understand complex data without code. Its AI-powered solution allows employees in the company, including non-data teams, to answer their ad-hoc data questions to get data insights and make better decisions. In April, the startup raised a €2m pre-seed round, led by Estonia’s Tera Ventures.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/baltic-startup-investor-watch/
