In the Startup of the Day column, Laurynas Pamparas, founder of Liledu, shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originate from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

In a market dominated by traditional online toy stores that encourage continuous purchases, Liledu stands out with its innovative and sustainable subscription service, offering tailored toy sets that evolve with your child.

At Liledu, we are redefining online toy shopping with a pioneering subscription service. It is designed for newborns and toddlers up to 2 years old. Traditional toy shops encourage frequent toy purchases (think lots of plastic waste and lots of clutter). At Liledu, we have introduced a sustainable, eco-friendly approach by offering customised toy kits that grow and evolve with your child,

Each month, you receive a curated box filled with developmentally appropriate toys. The toys have been carefully selected to not only stimulate young minds, but also foster curiosity and learning.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

Liledu was born from my personal experience as a parent overwhelmed by the rapid accumulation of toys in my home during my child’s first year and our struggle to find a more sustainable alternative. I noticed clear signs: too many toys cluttering the home, too much money spent on them, and too little lasting interest from the child. Later, I reached out that hundreds of other parents everywhere were facing similar challenges.

Realizing they weren’t alone, out team created Liledu — a toy subscription service that tackles these issues. Liledu offers a Play & Swap model, providing children with new, thoughtfully curated toys every month, fostering curiosity and growth while promoting sustainability,

From one family’s quest for balance, Liledu emerged — a solution for parents seeking mindful playtime and a brighter, sustainable future.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

We initially tested Liledu’s product/market fit in our home market with a local brand, successfully delivering 60,000 toys to date. Additionally, we’ve recently validated demand in the UK through successful market tests, and now, we are ready to expand internationally.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

The launch in the UK market is scheduled for Q3 2024. Currently, we are actively engaged in all launch preparations and are on the verge of completing them.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

We have a monthly subscription model: parents subscribe to our Play kits monthly.

What are your target markets and consumers?

Parents-to-be and parents with children aged 0-2 years.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

After extensive market research, we chose the UK as our initial focus for expansion. We launched our pilot in ’23 November and quickly met our key performance indicators through actual sales, not just waitlists.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

Liledu’s core team consists of 5 members, but we’re closely collaborating with our partners and experts in the field, bringing the total to around 12 people.

And yes, although we’re not actively looking for new members, we’re open and would like to meet everyone interested in joining us and helping us grow our community in the UK.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

Since our launch less than a year ago, the Liledu has raised a total of €625,000, which includes an initial €125,000 from FIRSTPICK and a group of angel investors last autumn (2023).

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

First and foremost, our focus lies on a successful launch in the UK, paving the way for subsequent growth and expansion.

• AMLYZE is a Vilnius-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) regtech offering a suite of anti-financial crime solutions for all types of financial services providers, including fintechs, banks, and crypto businesses. The company’s offering consists of comprehensive modules like real-time and retrospective transaction monitoring, customer risk assessment, AML/CFT investigations, PEP, sanctions, and adverse media screening.
• In May 2023, the company closed a €1 million pre-seed investment round led by Practica Capital, one of the leading venture capital firms in the Baltics, and FIRSTPICK, an accelerator and venture capital fund investing in technology companies across the Baltics.

We are thrilled to partner with Aura Cloud. Their commitment to agility and innovation aligns perfectly with our mission to provide AML/CFT solutions, built by regulatory insiders, who understand customer pain points from the inside out. Together, we will empower financial institutions to stay ahead of the curve in the fight against financial crime,

Jekaterina Govina, Co-Founder and Head of Partnerships, at AMLYZE, said.

• Aura Cloud is a a Stockholm-based nextgen AI digital banking platform, Aura. The cloud native platform is API-first and has the broadest functionality available to power innovative financial services. It has a range of different modules for Loans/Credits, Accounts/Deposits, Cards, Payments, Factoring, P2P, Loyalty, and Rewards.

We are glad to start the co-operation with AMLYZE. Their automated transaction monitoring and customer risk assessment solution provides additional possibilities for our digital banking platform customers to have state of the art solution to minimize financial crime and enhance compliance. We see this partnership as an excellent addition to our current partnership ecosystem in Northern Europe and beyond,

Prem Bhagwat, Aura Cloud CEO, shared his excitement about the partnership.

This partnership brings together the strengths of both companies, combining AMLYZE’s expertise in financial crime prevention with Aura Cloud’s innovative digital banking solutions.

About startups

• Co-founded by Jean-Baptiste Daguené, Mantas Urnieza, Tadas Cekavicius, Aivaras Rastenis, and Algimantas Padegimas, Evergrowth’s approach aims to eliminate some of the most common challenges in B2B sales, such as non-personalized, irrelevant outreach, and the reputational issues salespeople often face by being platform-driven rather than customer-centric. In February 2024, Evergrowth raised a €2.5 million pre-seed round led by Impellent Ventures and Practica Capital.

• The Mardid-based Apolo is an AI-powered growth agency with a mission to bring customers great strategies in harmony with their brand & growth vision. Apolo has over 50 specialised workflows using AI Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), Multi-Agent Workflows and fine-tuned LLMs.

The process of merger:

• Since merging with Apolo, Evergrowth has onboarded all of its clients onto the platform with Apolo’s integrated technology. In the first month of operation, 77,060 prompts were generated, and over 1,200 AI powered sales co-pilots, with one client alone mapping more than 250.
• The merger is a key step on Evergrowth’s way from a consultancy to technology platform. Evergrowth will have access to Apolo’s range of AI account-based selling systems and the LLM data enrichments development expertise of the Apolo team.

After the merger Apolo’s team will operate under the Evergrowth brand name.

In the Startup of the Day column, the founding team of WhiteBridge, shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and their future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originate from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

WhiteBridge wants to change the way in which people communicate with one another and manage their online reputations. We do that by leveraging AI tech and data about people to identify the most effective style of communication with them.

Whitebridge’s foundation is a decentralized infrastructure for collecting, verifying, and providing insights on personal data. More specifically, we have developedAI-Empowered dapps, which position us as the leading solution provider for webutation (web reputation) management, sales preparation, recruitment, and personal cybersecurity insights,

WhiteBridge integrates data from more than30 sources (and growing) to create unified, comprehensive profiles of individuals. We are capable of delivering not just raw data, but actionable insights that empower users in various professional and personal scenarios.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

WhiteBridge was born out of a recognition of people data as the most valuable asset of the 21st century. Sales people, recruiters, influencers and many more groups will benefit from better knowledge about their prospects, candidates, and personal reputations, and have more meaningful conversations as a result.

All in all, we are motivated by a vision of the empowerment of social relationships. Despite living in a digital age, relationships are still the most important thing there is. In addition, we believe everyone should have the right to understand what their online image looks like and be able to make informed decisions about it.

We’re also big on privacy and will be looking to offer services to make the most of legislation like GDPR, allowing us to empower individuals to remove information about them online without needing to go through the process manually with each individual data officer at each company that holds information about you.

On the technical side, we saw a gap in the market to efficiently consolidate and interpret what we consider ‘dispersed’ digital identities. Meaning that every person has pieces of their identity across multiple platforms, like different social media, but we don’t have good awareness of what they look like together.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

Initially, we focused only on insights for sales. However, we quickly understood that we had stumbled upon an idea with the potential to serve a wide range of needs. So we decided that we needed to test different approaches and conduct deeper interviews with potential customers. As a result, we ended up expanding the use cases. However, ultimately we see ourselves very much creating a data layer that is able to generate actionable insights for a multitude of purposes.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

We made an announcement about our online platform in December 2023. That was another way of testing our offer, rather than a super formal launch. We are proceeding in true startup fashion, testing and iterating at every step of the way.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Now, we operate a subscription-based model. There are different tiers to accommodate the needs of various groups, from individual consumers to enterprise clients. We also have a low-cost entry point for individuals to try out the service at just $9.99.

What are your target markets and consumers?

We are targeting both B2C and B2B. Like we mentioned before, we are first catering to individuals with a special interest in their online reputation, such as professionals who network a lot, influencers, and others. And of course, there are the sales and recruitment industries.

In terms of geographies, we don’t have a restriction, however the sweet spot will be English speaking countries, where you find a lot of our target customers and where the market size has the most potential. So, the US is a big target for us.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

We have actually already attracted hundreds of customers and generated thousands of leads. There is strong interest from the market. We have collaborated with some influencers and are experimenting with digital marketing with early successes. However, it’s still very early days.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

Our team consists of the four founders and six hired specialists. We have senior developers, data scientists, and marketing experts. Additionally, we believe in the benefits of strong networks. For us, our partners are like an extension of our team.

We are looking for people that share a common vision, especially people who have practical knowledge in open-source intelligence, data engineering & person recognition fields.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

WhiteBridge is currently keeping our options open. We are participating in local acceleration programs and the founding team has deep roots in Lithuania’s top startups, meaning we are well-networked into investment channels. Having said that, we are always open to new conversations.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

We’ll continue testing and iterating, introducing new features, improving the user experience, and focusing on making the insights even more actionable. All the while expanding our sales and continuing to experiment with marketing. We’ll be putting more of an emphasis on our sales capabilities for the sales and recruitment use cases.

Finally, we are looking to evolve into a community-driven product, and evaluating the best possible routes there. From integrating feedback tools directly into our reports to testing governance tools offered by the rising blockchain market. We see a lot of potential to enable user control and incentivize data improvement.

In the Startup of the Day column, the founding team of Broswarm, shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originate from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Broswarm is a defence tech startup specialising in advanced mine detection technologies. The startup employs drones equipped with a multi-sensor array technology that integrates various sensors like metal detectors, magnetometers, thermal imaging, and HD cameras. These drones are enhanced with machine learning algorithms to analyse sensor data. That helps us make identification and location of mines more accurate.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

The idea for Broswarm came from our belief in the urgent need for improved mine detection methods in conflict zones.

Particularly in Ukraine, which is a country very close to us geographically and which we feel a strong bond to because of our history of occupation. In addition, a significant portion of Ukraine’s land is now contaminated with mines,

What we’ve generally seen is that the average mine detection methods are outdated and slow. We wanted to develop a more efficient, technology-driven solution, but one that is also affordable.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

In 2023, our team won a defence tech contest with a concept that was likely not at MVP stage yet. And now, we went through the ScaleWolf accelerator in Vilnius with a much stronger product.

However, most of these trials and testing were not done in a real mine field. The key moment will be when we test our technology in Ukraine, we are planning field tests there later this year.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

We plan to launch our product later in the year and after we conduct tests in Ukraine. The exact date of the market launch is not set in stone, but we hope to be able to commercialise within this year.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

This is still something we haven’t fully decided on. However, at this stage the most important aspect of pricing is that it’s affordable enough to significantly move the needle in landmine detection capabilities in Ukraine, and at a price that makes sense for us to be able to produce and reinvest profits in improving the product.

What are your target markets and consumers?

While we do want to make a significant impact in Ukraine as soon as possible, our vision is to detect landmines anywhere in the world where they are an issue. We are talking about warzones and ex-warzones where there are very real problems – civilians, especially children, being killed or losing their limbs due to landmines.

Recipients of the product could be governmental players, non-governmental organisations and others involved in demining and land rehabilitation.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

The team consists of founders Ernestas Žvaigždinas, CEO, Karolis Žvaigždinas, CTO, and Mindaugas Talaikis, a Lead Engineer.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

In month 2024, we raised $100,000 in funding from ScaleWolf, a hybrid accelerator and fund focusing on defence tech. This investment supports us with the development and patenting of new, upcoming technology as well as the field testing we will undertake in Ukraine later this year.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

Conducting field tests in Ukraine, and preparing for a market launch. While our product is currently based on putting together existing tech and using it in new ways, we are also working on patenting new technology to better detect landmines of different sizes and at different depths in the ground. And, of course, we are looking to prepare for the next raise so that all this can make the biggest possible impact in the real world as soon as possible.

In the Startup of the Day column, Marius Jurgilas, co-founder of Axiology, shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originate from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Axiology is an alternative capital market infrastructure that allows for more efficient capital market transactions by providing a robust trading and settlement system using DLT. The platform will operate under EU DLT Pilot Regime. The first use case of the platform is about making government bonds market accessible to retail investors.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

Axiology is a spin-off from SUPER HOW?, an innovation lab that incubated Axiology. The original idea was to create a depository center for all types of “assets” on a consortium DLT infrastructure. With time and feedback from potential clients, the idea morphed into what Axiology is right now – capital markets infrastructure for tokenized securities.

We have been lucky to hit the timing right with an appropriate regulatory environment (EU DLT Pilot Regime and UK Digital Securities Sandbox). This provides the legal basis to what we have been developing at the technology level.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

Rounding up the MVP took almost a year. The most difficult part was to pass the compliance requirements filter of our partner. This was a great learning experience on both ends – us exposing ourselves to the legacy capital markets infrastructures and us bringing new mode of operation ideas to the partner.

Most importantly we understood (or we think we understood) why capital market has not been at the epicenter of innovations. It is highly complex and habitual arrangement with deep specialization along multiple layers of infrastructure. But to be able to innovate, it requires cutting across these layers.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

We are aiming to provide regulated DLT TSS (trading and settlement system) operator service. We validated our infrastructure with the partner for limited liability company shares register and now are building up and will be applying for the license & exemptions under EU DLT Pilot Regime Regulation. We estimate to be live at the end of 2024.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Axiology will replicate the business model of the current capital market infrastructure. The primary source of revenue will be fees for the services rendered on the issuance as well as trading of tokenized securities. Axiology infrastructure can be used to facilitate multiple use cases and thus is ideal for testing and prototyping various implementations not only on the securities side but also on the settlement asset side, be it CBDCs or various other forms of tokenized money (ie tokenized deposits, EMT, stablecoins).

What are your target markets and consumers?

Our ultimate target market is financial intermediaries of the EU that would like to make tokenized securities available to their retail investors. Down the road we see non financial corporates as clients that would be willing to issue digital native tokenized bonds directly on DLT infrastructure.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

As of today we are four co-founders supported by SUPER HOW? innovation lab on IT development and FORT Legal law firm on regulatory matters. We will be looking to expand our dedicated team and are currently looking for new hires in marketing/business development, business analyst, blockchain developer (XRPL and/or EVM chains) and compliance areas.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

We just closed €2 million pre-seed funding round. The investment was co-led by COINVEST CAPITAL and BALTIC SANDBOX VENTURES with significant angel investor participation.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

Our immediate objective is to comply with the requirements needed to obtain DLT-TSS operator status. Our ultimate objective is to become the go to capital market infrastructure for tokenized securities in EU and provide white-label technology product solutions globally.

In the Startup of the Day column, Mindaugas Bruzas, co-founder of Leya AI, shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about Leya AI. How does it work?

Leya AI is on a mission to give everyone on the planet access to personal coaching. While the mission is big, we start by focusing on a single problem first – English Language learning. Our team’s short-term focus is to revolutionize language learning methods by providing an affordable real-time speaking personal AI Tutor.

This is what the current stance of Leya AI is – it acts like a personal English Tutor that offers conversational exercises akin to real successful English tutors’.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

5 years ago, I was struggling with my English speaking skills, tried various solutions, but nothing helped. That changed when I started to speak only English in my daily communication. I would talk with my Lithuanian friends, colleagues, and relatives only in English. It was difficult – it took me a year to see the desired results and brought a lot of frustration for others. In other words, I experienced the pain of learning English deeply myself,

The idea of a language tutor application was born due to a few key reasons that unite all of our team: the team Leya has worked together for 4 years on AI/ML speech technologies, and we had developed a speech-to-text engine that was five times more accurate than the biggest competitors’. This expertise transferred perfectly to Leya AI. The second and most important reason is that the founders (and the whole team) experienced language learning problems first-hand.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

It took us a few weeks to build the prototype. And a prototype it was – lacking any sort of UI design and running locally during demos. We displayed it when we interviewed dozens of people, who all shared the same problem – reaching a plateau when learning English. The prototype, even if very basic, served us well during the customer persona interviews.

There we realized that there is a huge gap in the market – people were reaching a plateau with traditional language learning apps, however personal language tutors were too expensive or inconvenient to be an option. This just strengthened our willingness to double down on a “tutor in your pocket” type of product, which turned into the Leya AI English Tutor application.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

The real MVP was launched in June 2023, with already proven market demand, we were certain that there was a problem in need of a solution. Currently, Leya AI is a web-based application (PWA) that allows one to use it on a browser or download it as a desktop / mobile app. And we are planning to transform it into a native app soon.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

The business model for now is simple – it’s a B2C product monetized through a subscription model. We’re sticking to what works well and will expand to other business models when we see the need.

What are your target markets and consumers?

Our target consumers are from all around the world – both developing and developed countries, ex-pats and immigrants, professionals, and language students. Everyone shares the same desire to learn the English language and certainly knows it to some extent to understand the simplest instructions from Leya while communicating with it.

The environment Leya creates promotes ease and relaxation, that’s the perfect environment for learning- people are less afraid to make mistakes, and Leya corrects them – that’s one of the most powerful learning techniques,

The majority of our users are looking for how to improve their speaking skills, and using other apps hasn’t solved the problem so far. Also, lot of users are not confident practicing with tutors, who sometimes could be too judgmental and not so friendly.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

Since its launch in June 2023, Leya has amassed over 5500 users from over 100 countries. We have also received countless positive feedback from the rating system implemented into our application.
We do see traction in our current solution, and our users are already using Leya as a life coach and a partner- this shows us that our current users already have a need for a solution closest to our mission.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

We have a team of 7 full-time people working fully remotely. We are looking for exceptional individuals to join our team. Currently, we are looking for exceptional engineers, product managers, and UX/UI designers to join our team.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

At the start of 2024, we just raised an €1 million pre-seed round. Leya AI will use these funds to improve the AI English Tutor and keep growing our market share within the EdTech industry. Some notable investors, such as V-Sharp Venture Studio, Inventure, BADideas.fund, and multiple experienced angel investors, joined this round.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

Our long-term mission is to give access to personal coaching for everyone on the planet. Yet, one of our core internal values is “Think big, start small” – that’s exactly what we’re doing. The current application allows users to learn English, and in the future, we’ll be ready to take a huge step forward and expand to other languages, other domains, as an AI coaching tool in particular.

• Trendsales was co-founded in 2013 by Mads Aarøe Mathiesen, Martin Lykke Suhr, Nicklas Skov Pape, and Rasmus Andersen. It is Denmark’s largest second-hand marketplace for fashion and lifestyle items, which has played a significant role in increasing Danes’ second-hand consumption over the past years.
• With the current deal, Vinted continues buying out its European competitors. In October 2023, the unicorn acquired Homerr, a Dutch delivery scaleup, via its subsidiary Vinted Go.

The Danish appetite for second-hand clothing continues to grow, and Trendsales has played a significant role in that development. With impressive growth and a compelling vision, Trendsales is a company that has established a strong second-hand community in Denmark that we are excited to become part of. We look forward to a shared future in which we’ll continue our journey to make second-hand first choice in Denmark and beyond,

Adam Jay, CEO of Vinted, says.

Joining forces with Vinted will strengthen Trensales’ presence in the Nordic region and gives new opportunities to benefit Danish consumers. The acquisition follows Vinted’s launches in Sweden, Finland and Denmark in September 2023.

Dealroom has published a new report on the Lithuanian startup and VC ecosystem in 2023. AIN.Capital shares the key findings of the report.

Startup ecosystem value in 2023

• The combined enterprise value of Lithuanian startups has grown 7.1x to €13.7 billion between 2018 and 2023, double the average in the wider Baltic (2.7x) and other CEE regions (3.6x).
• Lithuanian startups raised €292 million in 2023, being ranked the second among CEE for 2023 VC investment, and second for VC investment per capita.

• Vilnius-based companies raised 96% of all funding raised by Lithuanian startups. With over 890 startups and €12.4 billion in combined ecosystem value, Vilnius alone accounts for 91% of the combined enterprise value of Lithuanian startups.

Top rounds and investors of 2023 in Lithuania were:

• PVcase with $100 million Series B round.
• Nord Security with $100 million growth equity round.
• CAST AI with $35 million Series B and $20 million early VC round.
• CUBE3.AI with $8.2 million Seed round.
• Sentante with €6 million Seed round.
• and Genus AI with $6 million Seed extension round.

Enterprise Software, Security, and Energy are Lithuaniaʼs most funded industries by VC investment volume in 2023.

The most prominent investors in Lithuania were:

• Coinvest Capital with 8 rounds participation in 2023.
• Practica Capital with 6 rounds.
• FIRSTPICK with 5 rounds.
• Iron Wolf Capital, Business Angel Fund, and LitBAN — all with 3 rounds.

In the Startup of the Day column, Gintarė Košubienė and Justas Rožėnas, co-founders of Micapass, share more details about the startup’s idea, its product, and plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Micapass is an on-chain AML compliance tool for the evolving DeFi ecosystem. It provides an AML wallet screening and continuous KYC/AML monitoring designed for DeFi protocols, enabling the identification of bad actors, helping to prevent potential sanctions, and ensuring regulatory compliance.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

In the exhilarating heyday of crypto, our team embarked on crafting a revolutionary privacy mixer for institutional investors. Just two weeks before our mainnet launch, our rival, TornadoCash, faced regulatory sanctions, throwing our plans into disarray. Instead of surrendering, we took it as an exhilarating challenge.

Over the following six months, we delved deep into research, driven by a singular mission: to create a solution that balanced privacy, compliance, and decentralization. The result was Micapass, a true testament to our tenacity and creativity.

“Micapass didn’t just break barriers; it redefined the real-time regtech landscape, proving that builders thrive on adversity, and obstacles are but stepping stones to groundbreaking innovations.”

the founding team added.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

We spent 6 months on it. The biggest challenge was to keep everything on-chain, keep anonymity, but offer compliance.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

MVP was launched in August 2023. Now, it’s a fully working product with improvements made every week.

“We have developed a compliance tool that helps prevent illicit funds from entering protocols while keeping the decentralized spirit intact.”

the team of Micapass commented on its solution.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Micapass has a B2B2C model. The user pays for digital identity. In the digital identity, the user saves proof of compliance — the user then can “travel” with these proofs from protocol to protocol.

What are your target markets and consumers?

Our primary focus is the DeFi market.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated?

We have over 10,000 users on testnets and mainnets.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

Our team consists of 6 people. At the moment, we are not hiring.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, and the purpose of the investment.

Yes. Just recently, we raised €240,000. Currently, we are preparing for pre-seed and plan to raise €1.2 million.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

Our vision: Micapass – the leader and #1st choice for DeFi protocols seeking AML compliance. We plan to onboard as many users as possible and integrate the product into various DeFi protocols.

In the Startup of the Day column, the founding team of myTU shares more details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

myTU is an innovative neobank founded in 2019 and headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania. We’ve fully embraced cloud technology, making our banking platform not only highly efficient but also lightweight and secure. Our emphasis on automation and AI allows to maintain efficiency with a small IT team, while our core team of experienced bankers provides top-level customer care and financial expertise.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

The inception of myTU was an amalgamation of experiences, industry insights, and a clear gap in the market. Having spent 25 years in the banking sector, Raman Korneu, CEO, has been part of over 40 capital markets and M&A deals. Raman’s initial efforts to secure investors were met with challenges. Yet, while myTU had a comprehensive grasp of the banking domain, the team lacked technical prowess. This gap was bridged when Tomas Navickas joined the team as co-founder and CTO in 2019, and together, they embarked on the myTU journey.

Co-founders also added that they had two primary motivations propelled the startup’s foundation:

“First, observing market trailblazers like Revolut highlighted the potential and attainability of our vision. Second, our insights into niche sectors, especially the “mobile” customers, revealed a considerable finance gap. Our differentiation was clear – while giants like Revolut had massive teams and resources, we viewed our leaner setup as our strength.”

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

After initially partnering with a third-party banking provider, we decided to take its tech stack in-house when it became clear the partner’s solutions were too expensive, unreliable and slow to iterate on. We made the decision to build entirely on Google Cloud, making us one of the first digital banks to run entirely on the public cloud. This allowed myTU to scale while keeping IT costs extremely low.

myTU launched targeting the travel industry, with the name myTravelUnion reflecting that focus. However, when COVID decimated the travel sector, myTU pivoted to family banking.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

In June 2020, the Bank of Lithuania granted us an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license. Our goal was always to acquire a banking license. We commenced with an EMI license, viewing it as a stepping stone.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

As a fintech company, we generate income through various revenue streams:

• First, we offer banking services, such as European IBAN accounts, Visa debit cards and SEPA transfers, to individual clients, for which we charge a monthly service charge of the payment card.
• Second, we earn interchange fees from payment card networks (VISA and Mastercard) when customers use our debit card for transactions.
• Third, we open accounts and provide online banking services for businesses, for which we charge a fee to open an account for high-risk companies, followed by a monthly subscription fee. For lower-risk businesses, we do not charge a fee to open an account.
• Fourth, we serve as a marketplace for businesses to showcase their products and services, deriving revenue from listing fees, commissions based on sales, and performance-based affiliate bonuses.

After obtaining the Consumer Credit Provider License, our plan is to provide travel loans that either cover the entire travel package or allow travellers to enhance their experiences (e.g., upgrading from a 4-star hotel to a luxurious 5-star stay). We will charge interest to individual clients and partnership fees to travel companies for this service.

What are your target markets and consumers?

Our primary focus is on Central and Eastern Europe. myTU is looking at countries often left in the shadow of the big fintech players, like Revolut. Specifically, countries such as Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, are our key focus areas.

Since February 24, 2022, the EU has registered over 6 million refugees from Ukraine, further amplifying the demographic shift in the region. These migrants constitute a substantial portion of our target audience.

“This trend is mirrored in the business sector, particularly within the IT industry, as companies relocate their workforce and establish new offices in the CEE region. Furthermore, we are providing these businesses with the opportunity to leverage our loyalty system as a means of motivating their employees.”

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

Today, myTU has over 25,000 customers across over 100 countries, with 30% weekly active users. As for our product offerings, we currently have a mobile banking app that includes SEPA IBANs, Visa cards, family banking features, a kids’ app, a marketplace, and a loyalty system.

Currently, we are working on launching Google Pay and Apple Pay. We also aim to expand our services, such as enabling transactions beyond the Eurozone and initiating international transactions.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

Our entire IT operations are managed by just 2-3 dedicated professionals. Yet, they have the capacity to seamlessly serve up to half a million clients without a hitch. Instead of manually going through documents for hours, our AI quickly reviews and summarises all necessary materials in mere seconds.

We aim to stay lean, with a goal of fewer than 100 team members, even when scaling up significantly. In the near future, we’re keen on boosting our customer support and sales departments. We foresee bringing on board about five to six talented individuals in the next year, effectively doubling our development prowess.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

In September 2022, myTU raised €5 million in a seed funding round. A group of angel investors who have built businesses in banking, IT, travel, and pharma led the round.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

Within a month, we integrated AI into our platform to extract insights from user profiles, like determining political exposure from occupations. We’re actively exploring product enhancements, including “travel now, pay later” loan models, partnerships with travel platforms, and potentially transforming our loyalty system #TIME into cryptocurrency.

• Vinted Go launched in early 2022 from Vinted’s existing shipping function. The solution pursues the aim of creating innovative and low cost shipping solutions which are also more climate-friendly. Currently, Vinted Go is rolling out an own-brand delivery network based around locker PUDO points in France, located in 9 cities.
• In 2019, Vinted acquired its unicorn status after raising €128 million. The second-hand clothing marketplace became Lithuania’s first tech unicorn.

“As a pioneer in a new way to deliver parcels, Homerr shares our commitment to develop improved PUDO delivery networks which have a lower impact on the climate than in-home delivery. Since Vinted members are a key part of its customer base, we have worked closely with the Homerr team. During this time we have been impressed with both their innovative offering and their passionate approach towards continuous improvement. We’re excited for a shared future in which we’re able to deepen the expertise and reach of both businesses to the benefit of Vinted members,”

Vytautas Atkočaitis, Vice President of Vinted Go, comments.

• Since its inception in 2016 in the Netherlands, Homerr has developed a network of social and commercial pick-up and drop-off (PUDO) points, enabling consumers across Benelux to ship and collect items easily when trading via marketplaces like Vinted.

“We have closely worked together with Vinted Go for some time now and we see a great opportunity in deepening the partnership to accelerate our  growth in shaping innovative delivery solutions with a lower impact on the climate. We believe that joining forces and sharing our expertise and skills in operations with Vinted’s scale, will allow us to enable further innovation for the future. We are looking forward to growing our network and delivery service together in order to build an even better experience for our customers and partners,”

Juriaan Matthijssen and Mark-Jan Pieterse, founders of Homerr, comment.

• Homerr will continue running as it is today, with its founders Juriaan Matthijssen and Mark-Jan Pieterse taking on senior roles within the combined business.
• This acquisition will enable both organizations to deepen their C2C delivery expertise, through shared learning and increased scale.

Lithuanian startup ecosystem overview: 

• Over 800 startups, with a total of €8 billion in combined ecosystem value.
• The largest investment ever is €250 million in Series F round for Lithuanian unicorn Vinted in 2021. Among investors are EQT Growth, Accel, Burda Principal Investments, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sprints Capital.
• The total amount of investment decreased from €450 million in 2021 to approximately €259 million in 2022. In contrast, the combined enterprise value of startups founded and headquartered in Lituanian has grown 16.8x between 2017 and 2022.

• According to Vestbee’s previous report, Estonia is still a leader in a number of funding rounds across the Baltics. However, during the coming years, Latvia and Lithuania catching up as their pre-seed and seed rounds start to approach Estonian levels.

• In 2022 Lithuania was the 10th country in the world for fintech developments, with Vilnius mentioned as the largest fintech hub in the EU in terms of licensed companies. Among the most popular segments for investments in recent years are ICT & game development, security, life sciences, AI, software, transportation, data science, and more.

VC Funds in Lithuania:

The Lithuanian regional VC firms are most active at early stages, covering 36% of all early-stage funding rounds made in 2022.The most active foreign investors in Lithuania include:

• General Catalyst (USA)
• Accel (USA)
• Network VC (USA)
• Novator (UK)
• Speedinvest (Europe)
• Eurazeo (Europe)
• Piton Capital (Europe)
• OpenOcean VC (Europe)
• OTB (Europe)
• ByFounders VC (Nordics and Baltics)

Top Lithuanian VC firms:

• Iron Wolf Capital, an early-stage VC fund based in London and Vilnius that focuses on startups in AI, IoT, SaaS, deeptech, fintech, marketplaces, with investment ticket from €250,000 to €1 million.
• Practica Capital, an industry-agnostic VC fund with over 10 years of experience and portfolio of 55 strartups. Its initial investment ticket is from €150,000 to €3 million.
• Open Circle Capital, an early-stage technology venture capital firm, focusing particularly on ICT, robotics, and high-tech with a ticket size up to €500,000.
• Contrarian Ventures, Vilnius-based investor, dedicated to mitigating the effects of climate change on our planet. 
• Coinvest Capital, a sector-adnostic fund that combines the benefits of venture capital and angel investors with a ticket size from €500K to over €5 million.
• 70V, a Vilnius-based sector-agnostic VC firm sales accelerator but with a focus on B2B customers.
• Katalista Ventures, an early-stage hybrid accelerator and private fund focused on supporting high-impact startups to grow and scale sustainably.
• Firstpick, a sector-agnostic accelerator and venture capital fund investing in tech companies across the Baltics.
• GamedevFund, an early-stage investment fund aiming to help talented teams in shipping their games by providing knowledge, contacts, and funds. 

Lithuanian Business Angels and Accelerators:

Lithuania is known for its strong community of Business Angels, which has a big impact on the ecosystem as a whole. They mainly focuse on early rounds often in syndicated or along with other VC funds, such as CoInvest Capital or Open Circle Capital. The most famous community of angel investors is Lithuanian Business Angel Network (LitBAN) that has 300 members and in 2022 invested €14.5 million in 21 startups.

Among the most active Lithuanian accelerators are Baltic Sandbox Ventures, Startup Wise Guys, and DÓBRA Impact Venture Studio.

The biggest funding rounds in H1 2023: 

• €18.8 million round for CAST AI, an intelligent cloud-native automation and cost management startup in March.
• €1.3 million seed round for Perfection42, AI-based tech startup in April.
• €4.4 million Series A round for Atrandi Bioscience, a biotech company in March.
• €3 milllion seed round fpr HeavyFinance, a fintech marketplace for reducing carbon emissions in March.
• €4.5 million round for a Saas company Oxipit in January.
• €5 million round for a deeptech startup Genomika in July.
• $8.2 million seed round for Lithuanian-founded web3 security startup CUBE3.AI in August.
• €3 million round for a logtech startup GoRamp in July.
• $100 milllion in a Series B round for a solar tech startup PVcase in July.
• €1.1M in a pre-seed round for marketplace Traxlo in May.

• Founded in 2000, Infare is a leading provider of competitor air travel data that empowers airlines to make effective pricing decisions. The company was first established in Copenhagen, but the majority of its development, 70-strong team, is located in Vilnius, Lithuania.
• OAG saw Infare’s airfare intelligence as a highly complementary addition to the company’s existing flight data solutions.

“We are incredibly proud of the role our Vilnius office has played in supporting the growth of Infare. The acquisition by OAG opens up new possibilities for us to scale up and provide unparalleled air travel intelligence to our customers worldwide,”

Nils Gelbjerg-Hansen, CEO of Infare, comments.

• OAG, the leading data platform for the global travel industry since 1929, is headquartered in the UK and also has a strong presence in Kaunas, Lithuania, with 60 employees. OAG states that the talent in Lithuania has been instrumental in OAG’s growth.
• Now, with two key bases in Lithuania, the country will host over a third of OAG’s global team, serving as dual hubs for technology and data expertise.

• Since starting in 2016, Energia Futura has installed more than 2500 solar plants for private homes and businesses.
• In 2022, the company’s sales grew by 3,7 times to €6,6 million compared to the previous year, and profit before taxes comprised €0,55 million.
• Business Angels Fund joined the company in 2020 when Energia Futura was raising a €300,000 seed funding round.
• Since then, the number of employees increased from 20 to 72 and taxes paid to the budget reached €5,1 million.

“We very much appreciate the Business angel, who joined us in the deal and honestly shared his expertise with the founders. We are very proud of our partner Nerijus Baliunas for the successful lead of this deal! The company was a startup at the time of investment, while now it is attractive for more conservative investors already!”

Business Angels Fund

Business Angels Fund is a venture capital firm which invests in startups, early-stage companies, and small-medium enterprises in the Baltic region, Poland, and greater CEE. BAF manages two VC funds (BAF I and BAF II; the investment size varies between €50,000 and €600,000. Recently, the fund invested in Lithuanian fintech Spenfi during €800,000 seed round.

• FIRSTPICK was launched in November 2022 by the Lithuanian team of the Estonian accelerator Startup Wise Guys. Among its recent participation was a $1 million round of Indonesian fintech Finfra. 
• The VC firm usually offers €5,000 per team member for practically validating its MVP via the pre-acceleration 7-week program. For the startups that already have a team, working product, and first traction, FIRSTPICK offers up to €100,000 investment and a 16-week program that helps to increase traction & revenue by working on B2B/B2C sales and marketing, preparing to raise pre-seed round.

The applications are open here.

• For startups that have growing traction, the VC firm provides an investment of €200,000-500,000 and optional accelerator with 16-week program. 
• The preliminary timeline of FIRSTPICK pre-accelerators:
  • April – May 2023
  • September – October 2023
  • April – May 2024

• Established in 2018 by David Trainavicius, PVcase provides an approach to utility scale solar layout design. The company focuses on automation and accuracy from the very earliest stages of planning, incorporating 3D topographical data points to simulate the actual location of the solar plant. Currently, PVcase has over 100 employees serving customers in more than 70 countries. 
• Anderson Optimization was founded by Jake and Eric Anderson, and develops power system modeling and optimization software for renewable integration. The company works with solar, wind, and battery developers across the US and abroad to efficiently bring more renewable energy onto the power grid.

“Solar software incompatibility might seem like a technicality to some. But in our work across 75 countries, developers and asset owners say it’s emerging as a serious growth constraint. With this acquisition, developers can cut their data loss risk substantially. And for European developers, we’ll be able to cut the project design process from weeks to roughly 20 minutes.”

David Trainavicius, CEO of PVcase commented.

• The deal will allow integrating PVcase software with Anderson Optimization’s, providing a comprehensive solution on a single platform. While Anderson Optimization’s software was not previously available in Europe, PVcase will launch it in the German, Spanish, and UK markets. 
• The PVcase’s leadership team will remain unchanged, while Anderson co-founders will continue in their respective leadership positions at that company.

In the Startup of the Day column, founders of ColibrisODM, share more details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

We connect SME from Western Europe that has a need for custom-made metal parts with metal processing shops from Baltics.

We work with high mix, low volume products, which are often neglected by large metal processing factories due to high preparation costs. Likewise, we are able to offer production from 3 work days as our production partners are relatively small companies that are highly flexible and fast.

Our web-based platform allows customers to calculate the price for custom-made parts within few minutes. User can quote and order sheet metal parts, adopt delivery time, material and coating. All changes are reflected in the price. Quality is validated by us and customer gets real time updates about production status.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

We have over 20 years combined experience in metal processing, so we know the industry from within. We often encountered situations where customers with relatively small projects were left behind in sense of quality, price and overall customer service.

On the other hand, there are over 150 000 metal processing companies in Baltics and Poland. 99% of those factories have idle capacity that they would be glad to use but are unable to do due to poor performance of sales staff. And in-between we have new technologies like our online calculation engine which allows real time calculation of custom-made sheet metal parts. Calculation is free of charge and no human interaction is needed, customers can order even 1 piece of part immediately and can get it delivered in as fast as 3 days.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

It took about 9 months to “give birth” to the first version of online calculation. We needed another 6 months to fine tune different parts of it. While this is a never ending process of improvements, today we are able to offer laser cutting, bending, drilling and powder coating. Further user experience improvements and new processes like welding will follow later this year.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

We have introduced fully operational version of the platform in the beginning of 2023.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

We have a special pricing with our production partners. We take the difference between the sales price and the purchase price.

What are your target markets and consumers?

Our target market at the moment is Nordic countries, with the focus on Sweden. We have customers from various industries, starting with exclusive furniture to trains.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

Our turnover in starting year (2021) was €120,000, in 2022 we reached over €600,000 turnover, this and following years we plan to double turnover each year.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

Currently, we are 5 employees, another 4 are joining next month. We are actively looking for strong sales people and new production partners from Baltics and Ukraine.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

Recently, we secured our first investment of €300,000. The round was co-led by CoInvest Capital and LitBAN.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

We are working on our marketing strategy, which will be deployed in Q4. Our main task is raising adverseness and educating the market about the On Demand Manufacturing – business model supported by our platform.

We are also doing a second round of carbon offsetting in early autumn. We calculated how much CO2 we have emitted in 2022, convert it to number of trees it takes to absorb that CO2 and will plant them. This year we are going to plant over 2 500 trees.

• The new Nova Post’s post office in Kaunas is a cargo department where customers can send and receive parcels from Ukraine up to 1000 kg. The delivery time is around 5 working days.
• The first office in Lithuania was launched on March 20 in Vilnius. In addition to delivery to the branches, order address delivery to any city in Lithuania or Ukraine is available. 
• Lithuania is the second European country where Nova Post launched its post offices after Poland. There, the company has already operating in 18 cities through 30 post offices.
• As Nova Post informed AIN.Capital, it aims to open 50 offices in all Polish provinces by the end of June. Also, the company will continue its foreign expansion in neighboring countries, and will further develop its financial service NovaPay:

Pixevia’s solutions are used in the markets of France, the Netherlands, the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The company is also actively engaged in research and experimental development activities. In 2018, it has received the first EU research grant, and in 2020 the second for AI-based Smart Store development.

In the Startup of the Day column, the founder of Pixevia Mindaugas Eglinskas shares more details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

“The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.”

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Pixevia brings the conventional grocery store and retail experience into the digital age with a seamless, cashier-less checkout process and AI-powered store management tools. Our AI technology solutions and a SaaS platform to power deliver an appless shopping experience and real-time receipts for shoppers.

How it works is basically that customers enter a ‘powered by Pixevia’s store by tapping a payment card. They do their normal shopping and can even put items into their own bag as they shop. When they’re ready to leave, they tap the payment card again, a receipt is delivered instantly, and they walk out. It couldn’t be simpler.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

We approached Pixevia through the lens or perspective of grocers and retailers. This is a very difficult industry with razor-thin profit margins, where managers and stakeholders are always looking for ways to cut costs. At the same time, the customer experience can be improved a lot. So, our main motivation was to deliver a better shopping experience for customers and a better grocery management experience for retailers.

I had a lot of previous experience in machine learning and robotics. I worked at the Central Bank of Lithuania with real-time payment systems, and I launched a couple of startups before. Combining these experiences, it was quickly apparent that there is major room for improvement in grocery retail using AI.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

Well, our prototype was built in our office, and we did that fairly quickly. It was just a few shelves and the cameras where we could test everything and just have people from the office come by and “shop” for items in this simulated environment.

From that prototype we launched our own store in 2019 which was the very first AI-driven store in Europe and operated it for a couple of years. We learned a lot from this experience, and we were able to easily experiment with customer experience. In 2019, we learned that it’s almost impossible to convince shoppers to download an app for simple purchases. They would always rather choose another store, so we had to rethink the system and figure out how to deliver this autonomous shopping experience without the baggage of the app world.

Then in 2022, we launched the first store with a commercial partner, IKI – part of the Rewe Group. We opened our first store with IKI a couple of years ago and our second store just this year. Things are really starting to roll now, with several major interested partners all over Europe and even some in the US.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

Our first store was opened in 2019.

Tell us about the stratup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

There are a one-time installation and onboarding fee to change a store into a Pixevia store, and also a monthly fee for the platform. This doesn’t involve anything more complex than some normal security cameras and simple shelf sensors. The complex operations are handled on our side through the software platform.

Autonomous shopping is just the beginning, and we also think of ourselves as a retail data platform and analysis suite. For example, we also offer deep integrations of our AI engine with security alerts, inventory management, other modules

What are your target markets and consumers?

We are looking at convenience chains and gas station retail chains in Europe, as well as smaller supermarkets, US, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. Obviously, everyone needs to eat, so grocery is a gigantic industry. This is one of the reasons we are not afraid of some competition, and in fact we welcome it.

Moreover, we think the potential of our technology is massive. Labor accounts for one of the biggest costs for grocery retailers, and we estimate that we can lower labor costs significantly. In an industry that typically has around single digit profit margins, this represents a major improvement.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

We are still in the very early stages of our partnerships with retailers. IKI for example has 3 stores with us now and more planned for 2023. The stores in the US are also in deployment.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

We have 16 people on our team right now, with the headquarters in Vilnius and a sales office in London as well. We’re always looking for talented and motivated people, of course, so if anyone is interested in revolutionizing retail through amazing technology, feel free to get in touch with me on LinkedIn.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

We’ve raised around €4.2 million total, which includes around €2.2 million in seed-round funding from VCs and angel investors and another €2 million in science and technology research grants, which I think gives a good indication that we take our tech very seriously.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

The future is looking bright! More stores, more partners, more regions. We are very busy with sales development right now, and there are a lot of promising partnership opportunities. Our team is also dedicated to continuously improving our technology and fostering the business partnerships and stores that we’ve already built.

• Nova Post’s branch office opened in Vilnius at the address Žalgirio g. 92, LT-09303.
• It is a cargo department using which you can send and receive goods from Ukraine weighing up to 1000 kg.
• The office will work daily.
• The delivery time is around 5 working days.

The cost of delivery is:

• up to 2 kg — UAH 300,
• up to 10 kg — UAH 450,
• up to 30 kg — UAH 600,
• from 31 kg to 1000 kg — UAH 25 per 1 kg of weight.

“I am sure that Nova Post will surprise Lithuanians and become a reliable partner as well as support for our future customers here. We’re fast, we’re reliable, we’re flexible and customer-focused, and we don’t plan to stop. Already in May, we will open a new office in the city of Kaunas, so that even more people can use the fast delivery from Nova Post. In addition, this year we’re going to enter the markets of Estonia and Latvia,”

Volodymyr Popereshniuk, co-founder of Nova Post, says.

To read more about the delivery from Lithuania, follow the link.

Startup ecosystem value in 2022

• The Lithuanian startup ecosystem grew in value by a factor of 16.8 between 2017 and 2022, reaching a total of €9.5 billion. In 2021 this number was €7.3 billion.
  • Apart from Lithuanian, Croatia became the CEE nation with the fastest growth rate over the same period. And Ukraine was the third fastest-growing ecosystem, seeing its startup ecosystem grow by 8.8 times. 
• In 2022, the total amount of funding for Lithuanian startups reached €295 million. Last year, the startups raised €465 million with €250 million Series F round for Vinted. Nevertheless, the numbers of 2022 places Lithuania on the 6th among Central and Eastern European countries for VC investment and 3rd for VC investment per capita.

“Based on data, we can see that the Lithuanian tech ecosystem has reached an inflection point and will inevitably follow the trailblazer Estonia. The accelerating network and knowledge spill-over effects, second-time founders, increasing startup top and mid talent pool, top-tier VC exposure to the region, a growing number of active angel Investors and one of the best governmental policies globally are catalytic effects next to the actual capital efficiency of Lithuanian startups. Maturing ecosystem and ready-to-be-deployed capital create the foundations for future growth,”

Donatas Keras, Founding Partner at Practica Capital, comments about the reports.

Notable Lithuanian startups:

1. NORD Security, a country’s new unicorn.
2. kevin., a potential unicorn, valued at about €200 million or more.
3. PVCase, a global solar technology company.

Dealroom also noted great new startups such as Kilo.Health, a digital health and wellness startup, laser tech Litilit, and Oxylabs, specialise in web data gathering. Further notable startups include Vinted (Lithuania’s first unicorn), CityBee, Ondato, SME Finance, Interactio, and Whatagraph, all based in Vilnius.

Investors

Foreign investors are increasingly active in Lithuania, with domestic investors more active at early stages. In 2022, 9% of VC funding came from Lithuanian investors, 36% from the rest of Europe, and 35% from the US.

Currently, the top investment sectors are security and fintech, followed by transportation, ecommerce, energy, food, health, wellness beauty, lasers, and edtech.

In the Startup of the Day column, CEO of SME Finance Mindaugas Mikalajūnas shares more details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

“The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.”

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

SME Finance is reinventing growth financing for small- and medium-sized enterprises. It has already provided more than €1.3 billion in working capital to over 2,600 growing businesses across Europe. SME Finance is a market leader in B2B financing in the Baltics, with more than 50% of the market in Lithuania, the one of the largest financial services technology platform for SMEs, and rapidly increasing market share in Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.

SME Finance’s team provides a better, faster, and fairer alternative to traditional banks or VC equity funding, even for companies with short trading histories. Loan decisions are delivered through an AI-driven financing platform, which provides accurate, unprejudiced lending decisions within just one hour.

Our mission is simple — to provide financing services faster, simpler and cheaper.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

In my banking career, I was frustrated with the lack of opportunities afforded by the major institutions to SMEs, the backbone of modern economies. SME Finance was started to provide growing businesses with a single platform for all their finance needs. Small and medium enterprises represent over 90% of companies in Lithuania, a similar number across Europe. At the same time, SMEs generate about 40% of GDP in emerging economies.

Despite this, traditional banks, which represent the majority of the market in Baltic countries, are not interested in SMEs. In fact, most SMEs are rejected from traditional banks because of the lack of information, data, or because of the higher risks. So there is a huge opportunity to fulfill the needs of SMEs. That is the niche SME Finance is in, and the mission we have set our eyes on. We are focusing on making financing products and services more accessible and making these services totally digital.

A key differentiator for us is the creation of a single platform with a variety of financing products for SMEs. We operate only online, via website or mobile app, providing daily financing services with additional opportunities for every business.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

We started with only one product — invoice financing, and we offered our services only in Lithuania. Essentially, we knew that we wanted to start financing activity, and we chose invoice financing because it‘s a scalable business, and you can also easily see the risks of clients. Moreover, we saw the niche which wasn’t taken back then as the traditional banks didn‘t want to provide factoring services. Though in Lithuania we had around 90% of SMEs that were interested in this service, but it was really difficult to get it from the traditional banks.

The main breakthrough for us was COVID. That was the time we grew and started to offer multiple lending products. Before COVID, we had 80% revenue based on factoring and 20% revenue based on short loans. Now we have the opposite situation. For most businesses, those turbulent times brought a lot of challenges, but we managed to see opportunities. We spotted governmental programs for businesses in Lithuania which started offering loan guarantees for businesses affected by COVID, and we seized the chance to participate in the programs as well as started offering more financing solutions.

The journey of becoming a fintech wasn‘t easy, and it took almost 5 years to become a fully digital alternative lender. Our biggest challenge was to set up the team for tech development. Our desire to make the customer’s journey fully digital. We are trying to build an ecosystem and manage to reach customers through integrations/ partners, our plan and goal is to integrate financing solutions to other platforms, e-shops, even telecom businesses.

When exactly did you launch your product?

SME Finance was established in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2016.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

At the moment, SME Finance offers a number of different financing services, including business loans and credit lines, invoice finance, leasing and revenue based financing in partnership with the largest marketplace in Baltics pigu.lt. SME Finance also provides invoice financing or factoring, including classic, reverse, undisclosed, supply chain, and leasing.

In early 2022, the company launched Smart Loan — a new type of loan where the main goal is to simplify and accelerate the credit checking process for companies seeking to borrow up to €30,000.

SME Finance is the leading lending company in the Baltics. We were the first fintech in the Baltics that offered revenue-based financing in partnership with Pigu Group, we are eager to offer tech lending solutions to SMEs and e-retail businesses.

SME Finance’s goal is to reinvent business financing by building best-in-class technology, optimizing processes and offering embedded finance solutions with partners Business model – we created a single platform with a fully digital customer journey, online credit application, onboarding and underwriting based on AI-powered scoring model.

A single platform allows customers to get financing quickly and easily. SME Finance provides all kinds of financing, which is a big advantage for SMEs, because they no longer need to look for lots of partners, they can find all financing/lending solutions on a single platform. The main source of monetization is still lending, but we are also developing other products, such as business analytics and financial insights, pre-limit calculators. SME Finance has all the necessary tools for SMEs.

What are your target markets and consumers? 

To date, we have more than 50% of the market in Lithuania, but we are rapidly increasing market share in Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. In 2023 SME Finance will expand its presence into the Netherlands, Spain and Germany, with further European offices planned.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

SME Finance has already provided more than €1.3 billion in working capital to over 2,600 growing businesses across Europe. Currently, the robust risk management and therefore a very low NPL (non-performing loan) ratio of just 1%. Moreover, SME Finance’s leading position has been achieved through a strong technology, including innovative AI-powered revenue-based financing (RBF) that shortens and simplifies the business financing process, and introduces unbiased lending criteria.

SME Finance outperforms its local peers’ financial position — from the starting date, the company operates profitably and generated €14 million revenue last year, bringing 30% ROE to our shareholders. While the forecast for the upcoming year is €40+ million.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

We have a team of over 160 banking and technology professionals, and we are constantly looking for new talents.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

To date, total funding raised from institutional investors exceeds €200 million, while funding raised from high net-worth individuals via private bonds exceeds €80 million. Together with the ecosystem partner SME Bank, SME Finance manages a €300 million funding portfolio in a single ecosystem.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

We aim at growing not only revenue from the interest, but also scaling-up our daily financing services. We would like to offer more services via partners and more embedded finance solutions, as SME Finance’s tailored services are aimed at solving a particular company’s goals.

We believe that providing a full range of services and support tailored to SME customer’s needs and customizable by them via digital channels is what’s needed in the future. We also would use the tech necessary to get deep enough under the skin of what an SME is actually doing to make a reliable risk assessment without running up costs that make a loan unattractive for both parties. Also, the high level of automation will enable us to price services at levels that are attractive to smaller business owners.

In the Startup of the Day column, Co-founder and Business Development Manager of LABA7 Marius Ramanauskas shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

“The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.”

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

We are producers of high-quality suspension tuning, servicing, and diagnostics equipment. We manufacture the equipment and sell it to racing teams, suspension manufacturers, and suspension tuning and servicing workshops. During the short life of our startup, we are already used and recommended by such worldwide leaders as KTM/WP, ZF Sachs, KW Suspension, EXT, and others. You would not find any World championship for bicycles, motorcycles, cars, or 4x4s where at least one team would not be using LABA7 equipment.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

A friend of ours who is rebuilding and servicing motorcycles and car suspension asked if we could produce a shock dyno for him as there are no good options in the market. Andrius Liškus took it as a challenge and together with Andrius Petkauskas started working on the project which was meant to be a quick one, but ended up with 1 year of development and in the end, being the first of our product which immediately attracted sales. That led to the first investment and expansion of the team, and warehouse, pushing sales, and placing ourselves on the map.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

It took us half a year from the idea to the first working prototype. The most challenging part was to make mechanics, electronics, and software work in unison and deliver as accurate results as possible. Another half a year was needed to make the product ready for the market. After that, we made a couple of sales and attracted the first investment which helped us make the next needed step.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

It was approximately 3 years ago. Since then we have launched many more products and right now have 4 variants of Shock dyno, 2 variants of Spring rate dyno, and 3 variants of vacuum pumps. Soon to come is our most complicated project so far – an electromagnetic actuator dyno that can simulate how suspension works on the track as well as deliver the speeds and forces which are not possible with current dynos. Afterward, we are launching race car wireless scales for weighing the cars for balance adjustment.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Well, we manufacture the products in a niche market of automotive sport. So the competition was not very harsh (we are talking about ±5 competitors). They were sleeping a little bit on what they have done. We came with unique features, much more up-to-date software and of course, set the sales process right. We go for extensive outreach which brought results and already this year we do see that our inbound sales are growing nicely, and word of mouth is bringing clients. But one of the most important selling points was and still is our after-sales support. This is what makes hardware sink or swim.

What are your target markets and consumers?

LABA7 sells globally with the main market being the EU, but actively increasing our presence in the US and Canada. Recently we opened Arabic Peninsular, sold to Australia, and New Zealand. To my mind, only Africa and Antarctica remain where LABA7 is not yet there.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results?

We went for €220,000 in sales in the first half a year, followed by €800,000 in the second year, and now aiming to close the year with €1.2-1.4 million. We measure the quantities sold, sales coming from current products and new products, market-wise as well.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup?

Right now we have 15 people working for us, we are always looking for new salespeople to add as well as people who are interested in automotive — they can find their place here easily.

Have you already raised any investments?

Yes. We closed 2 rounds. The first one was with 70 Ventures where we had €250,000 coming to us in two stages: €50,000 for bringing the sales team in and €200,000 when the KPIs were reached (we did it quickest in 70V history – 5 months time). And just recently we closed a second round of investment led by Coinvest fund together with the Lithuanian Business Angels association and angel investors. The amount is €640,000. We will use this money for R&D, marketing, and team expansion.

What’s next?

Our journey just started. We want to shake the market a little bit, coming with unique products which were not in the market or products which have features that were not available in the market. We put our customers first and listen to them as much as we can when we are developing the product and of course as mentioned earlier in the after-sales stage. 2025 should be an interesting change of direction in the automotive market when the EU agrees to support an even more circular economy. Shock absorbers even for regular cars should become serviceable, and this is where our machines will be needed on a big scale. So we are doing our homework till that time to be ready.

Moreover, we want the LABA7 logo seen in every top-tier racing — Formula 1, Dakar, WRC, Le Mahns 24H, WRX, WTCC, MTB XC, Downhill, MXGP, MOTO GP, etc. We hope that this will as well help us to promote our country — Lithuania, which is one of the best places for a startup to be in.

• Founded in 2011, Practica Capital is one of the most active Baltic VC funds, due to AIN.Capital. The firm focuses on marketplace, SaaS, and deeptech startups.
• Practica Capital managed three funds with a total value of €52 million and has more than 60 investments. Its portfolio includes Softneta, Sonarworks, Aurora Propulsion, Eneba. 
• The new €70 million fund aims to invest in 25 companies, with a single ticket of up to €3 million primarily at the seed stage, making several initial investments in pre-seed and Series A. More than 50% of the fund will be allocated for follow-on investments. 

“We fundamentally believe success stories can come from any sector, however, it is not yet reasonable to expect any sector to deliver numerous success stories by virtue of its small population and young ecosystem. Hence, we do evolve our fund strategy in parallel with the tech ecosystem and always center it around founders.”

says Arvydas Bloze, partner at Practica

• The new fund first close is supported by the Estonian and Lithuanian branches of Swedbank, cofounders and early team members of Lithuania’s first unicorn Vinted, and venture builder Tesonet. 

• The firm was founded by regional investors Sandra Golbreich, Andrius Milinavičius, and Erik Bhullar, who ran an accelerator, also called Baltic Sandbox. Their current firm will split the raised funds in two parts of €6.5 million, the first is aimed at pre-seed and the second — at seed startups.
• In total, it wants to accelerate up to 60 teams, with an acceleration ticket of €25,500. The fund will also support 23 teams during pre-seed rounds, with tickets of up to €100,000. And complete 18 follow-on rounds at seed stage, with tickets ranging from €200,000 to €400,000.
• Baltic Sandbox Ventures will be active across different sectors in deeptech and life sciences in the Baltic region. It is especially interested in solutions that are patented or patentable.

“The way we look at deeptech investment in Europe is wrong. The talent is there, but potential deeptech entrepreneurs are not making it through to seed stages and often end up inside global corporations located outside the region. That’s because the people who come up with new deeptech innovation are initially more focused on engineering problem-solving. They remain invisible to VCs stuck in a game of popularity contests around pitching, charisma and the hype-cycle, rather than the substance of the founding team and the underlying business or technological advantages. Our edge is that we understand deeptech and know how to find and communicate with the right people,”

Sandra Golbreich, General Partner at Baltic Sandbox, said.

• INVEGA, a Lithuanian government agency, is the anchoring investor for the fund. The rest of the cash comes from private investors including Vytautas Kašėta, cofounder of SUPER HOW?, and Pijus Makarevičius, founder of Furniture1.

• Founded by four team members of Estonian accelerator Startup Wise Guys Andra Bagdonaite, Jone Vaituleviciute, Marijus Andrijauskas, and Dmitrij Sosunov, new VC firm FIRSTPICK focuses on early-stage deals across the Baltic region.
• FIRSTPICK has already raised €15 million from the targeted €20 million. It’s anchored by €9 million from the Lithuanian state-owned fund of funds INVEGA, the rest of the amount came from private investors.  
• The fund plans to invest in 45 startups over the next three years. It offers a pre-accelerator with grants of up to €20,000 per team, an accelerator with an investment range from €50,000 to €100,000, and investments up to Series A, between €200,000 to €500,000. 

“We as a fund really are more willing to take risks, to make bigger bets, to support founders that maybe don’t have very good traction yet, but who have a very good vision, and that we believe they can execute on this vision,”

Andra Bagdonaite, co-founder, and a partner of FIRSTPICK comments.

• FIRSTPICK has a sector-agnostic approach, and focuses on Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, but can also invest elsewhere if it sees a great opportunity. 

In the Startup of the Day column, founder and CEO at Ondato Liudas Kanapienis shares details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Ondato is a tech company that streamlines KYC, KYB and AML-related processes. Our solution is an operating system if you will, that can solve all KYC needs in one place. We are HQed in the UK, but were born in Lithuania and retain strong Lithuanian roots.

To expand on our solution, Ondato provides technological solutions such as digital identity verification, business customer onboarding, data validation, authentication, and more. These provide the highest standard available of online- or offline-KYC on-boarding for all business and customer types done from a single interface. Ondato is turning compliance into a business benefit for its customers, helping to create a better and safer environment for organisations and individuals.

We help businesses focus on their main activities without worrying about identity theft or regulatory compliance managing new or existing clients’ data. On the other hand, Ondato helps end-consumers to get product access anywhere, anytime, securely.

We’re using state-of-the-art machine learning that analyses cross-checks any received information with local and international registries within milliseconds.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

Organisations of all kinds, especially financial institutions, need to know who they’re working with. It’s better for business, and many jurisdictions demand it. Today’s identity verification and “know your customer” (KYC) tools are time-consuming, difficult to use and inefficient — financial institutions have paid over$10 billion in regulatory fines over the past year for KYC violations, and fraud has increased by 252% since 2019.

We decided to create a better, more complete solution than what existed in the market, centred on our vision to turn compliance from a hassle into a business benefit. So we built a skilled team to develop a compliance solution for financial institutions – and other organisations – that is faster, simpler and more effective than the status quo.

I realised that by combining my knowledge in payments and retail I could lead a team and develop a solution that would benefit the KYC and verification industries. That’s how we started Ondato. We saw the need to streamline KYC and AML processes because we experienced how supervisory requirements were getting more and more complicated.

It was really difficult to follow everything and mistakes were happening to companies across finance and beyond, despite their increased hiring in compliance. That’s when we understood the need to onboard clients quickly and efficiently will be an ever-growing pain point for financial institutions. Because we had the right experience and know-how, we decided to create a suite that would offer solutions for financial institutions and any other business that needs to verify the identities of its customers.

In 2018, we started developing unique and resilient solutions that helped our customers focus on their businesses, while Ondato took complete care of all the KYC and AML processes. This became our central idea and we have been developing and expanding it ever since.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

We started developing the MVP in 2018, and at the beginning of 2019 we launched one of our first services — automated identity verification. Over time, we developed new solutions for KYC and AML processes and refined existing ones. This year, we launched Ondato OS, a solution akin to a compliance operating system that brings our modules together and covers the entire customer lifecycle process.

For us, the main challenges were always time and speed. Our product quite rapidly found its niche in the market. Once we were on the map, the demand skyrocketed, which also meant that we had to find balance between the quality of new features and their timely delivery to ensure that a smooth client experience. We released over 50 features and ten new products within a year. This, while expanding to new markets, and hiring for further startup growth.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

We launched in 2019.

Tell us about the stratup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

The pricing depends on the needs and usage of the company. Typically, plans charge per verification, with different plans including or excluding additional features and platform seats.

Ondato uses micro-modular architecture, making it a customizable and scalable product that fits any enterprise across the globe, fintech or not. Ondato can be viewed as a pile of Lego blocks that can be mixed and matched to find unique solutions to the problems, regardless of process complexity or regulatory changes.

What are your target markets and consumers?

Our main clients are financial institutions: banks, fintech, insurance companies, investment platforms and other companies that provide their services in cyberspace. We are now actively expanding in Europe, with particular focus on growing the business in Germany, France and Spain next.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

To date, the company has raised €6.6 million and has operations globally. Today, Ondato is one of the leading KYC and AML platforms in Europe and works with over 300 clients globally. We are actively expanding into new regions and deepening our footprint in others. The company has offices in the United Kingdom, Lithuania, and Poland. Ondato has won several awards, including being named “Fintech of The Year” by the German-Lithuanian Business Awards, and continues to grow rapidly.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

Ondato has 192 employees.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

To date, the company has raised €6.6M. Ondato has started its operations with a grant investment, followed by 3 pre-seed and 2 seed rounds involving 6 investors.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

One of our future plans is to explore and strengthen the risk-flexibility of our platform. This means that depending on your client, you need to gather a different scope of information depending on a number of different risk factors. For example, the data you gather for the economy-sharing service will be different from the data you have to gather for a bank, as a bank will require a deeper level of insight.

With Ondato OS, we can offer better flexibility for the customers (they provide only the necessary data meaning that they spend less time with arbitrary forms). It’s also easier for businesses as they can manage customer data from client cards and adapt their approach to better suit their business case. In essence, it’s a smarter way to approach KYC procedures that guarantees safety and flexibility. In fact, the OS consolidates, updates and streamlines Ondato’s end-to-end compliance suite within a single platform. Each individual service has been upgraded and integrated into a new, holistic ‘compliance CRM’ that provides online financial players with an unprecedented level of clarity about new and existing customers, including those imported into Ondato from legacy compliance systems. This is the path that we are continuously developing.

• Founded in 2022 by Ayelen Denovitzer and Shailendra Sason, Solvo is a new finance company. It aims at battling misinformation associated with crypto. The company makes crypto simple, easy, and understandable by curating the best, as well as high-quality investments.
• Now, it is launching a new iOS App with an initial suite of transparent products. It will provide crypto-interested investors both diversification and yield. The app will allow long-term holdings in high-quality coins such as Solana and Cardano.

“Until now crypto-investing has been complex, unclear and required highly specialised knowledge. Solvo is about to change that. Investing with Solvo will be simple, easy and understandable – three words not associated with crypto,”

Ayelen Denovitzer, Solvo co-founder and CEO, explains.

• Index Ventures, a global venture capital firm, was the lead investor in the January 2022 round, which saw the participation from CoinFund and FJ Labs. The funding allowed Solvo to build a 10-strong team of industry experts, and build its first product offerings.
• At launch, Solvo will also function as a wallet that supports buying, selling, deposit, and withdrawal of the 10 highest quality crypto-currencies with a simple, intuitive interface.

• Founded in 2019 in Vilnius, Eddy Travels aims to make planning trips simpler, by finding the cheapest hotels and flights in seconds. Its travel assistant is a fully automatic chatbot designed for websites, mobile apps, blogs, and social messaging applications.

“At TripAdd, we were impressed with Eddy Travels’ team and technology from the first meeting. The technology talent pool in Lithuania is amazing, and we are especially keen to expand our R&D office in Vilnius,”

Gabriel Menkin, Co-founder and CEO at TripAdd, comments on the deal.

• American company TripAdd joined forces with the Eddy Travels team to develop the marketplace further, and, to enhance the B2B Eddy AI chatbot services. It is a New York-based travel tech company offering a digital marketplace for all things about travel.
• Earlier, Eddy Travels raised about €1.5 million to date from TechStars, Practica Capita, Open Circle Capital, and angel investors. It now has more than 400,000 users worldwide. It also provides white-label services for other travel businesses – a business function TripAdd wants to expand on.
• The next step for the companies is to launch a marketplace with a number of international online travel agencies. They also want to expand of engineering and sales teams in Vilnius.

In the Startup of the Day column, co-founder and CEO at Agenic Tomas Vasiliauskas shares details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Agenic is a digital “transformer” of social media marketing. Now we are at the first stage of three.

• Stage 1 is about a marketing automation tool for digitizing influencer marketing. Data-driven solutions used by the startup reduce manual and administrative work by up to 80%, which cuts costs by up to 20 times. It also speeds up the release of campaigns and allows businesses to quickly expand to other markets with influencers from different social media channels.
• Stage 2 — MarTech tool for marketing content research of your competitors. This tool will allow businesses to do all of their social media marketing from just one platform by comparing their creative performance with their competitors and by analyzing the competitors’ marketing history — both the success cases and failures — to their benefit. Also, this platform will offer an easy way to figure out the most effective social media platforms for communicating with your audience and finding new followers.
• Stage 3 — automated tool for leveraging your followers and getting Zero Party Data without spending too much. In short, an automated messaging platform that offers a thorough segmentation of your audiences and helps reach each of your followers with an individual touch. This precise targeting and human-like communication is sure to help convert followers into sales.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

After coming to know many people from the influencer marketing industry, we could not notice that in this technology era, the processes are the same as in the digital ads business in the ’00s. That’s why we’ve decided to do something about it.

How long did it take you to reach MVP? What difficulties did you encounter?

Probably between 6-10 months. It took some time because we did not want to start creating a product just to put it “on the shelf.” It is essential for us to understand how, when, and where we can create the most added value for the business.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

The official launch is planned for August 15. However, we are already working with some businesses that were early adopters right from the beginning.

Tell us about the stratup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Businesses can execute a whole influencer campaign starting from just $100.

What are your target markets and consumers? 

Currently, we are working in four markets (Baltic States and Poland). However, when we reach the 2nd and 3rd Stages, we will also enter the US and Canada markets.

Our consumers are businesses that are on social media and with one of their sales channels based on social media.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

Due to automatization, we can reduce costs by up to 20 times; reduce manual and administrative work by 80%; deliver higher success rates for business campaigns, ROAS up to 19.8; shorter campaign initiation phase by 350%.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

There are seven people currently working on the startup.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

Recently we received €120,000 investment from an angel investor.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

​​The closest future plan of the startup is to start fulfilling obligations to their customers who, up until now, were on the waitlist for the product and continue expanding the platform’s functionality. Those already working with us can expect new and unique functionality on our platform to be launched very soon.

It will provide new opportunities for businesses to guide existing digital audiences into conversions and collect Zero Party Data from social media networks. This will be a significantly more effective and cheaper way to reach a digital audience on social networks than paid advertising.

• Founded in 2017 by ex-investment bankers Rokas Peciulaitis and Tomas Kemtys, Contrarian Ventures utilises a collaborative, founders-first approach to support future climate-oriented founders.

“We must focus on the world in 2050, not just in 2030. Climate tech is going to be one of the most lucrative and important investment opportunities for the next 30 years but entrepreneurs in Europe are still heavily underfunded and underrepresented at the seed stage,”

Contrarian Ventures co-founder Rokas Peciulatis says.

• The fund will focus specifically on seed stage investments, hoping to back pioneers building innovative technologies that will support the infrastructure of tomorrow.
• Contrarian Ventures is also expanding across Europe. The firm is opening new offices in London and Berlin, as well as adding Molten Ventures and the Grantham Foundation to its LP base.

Although the startup scene is rapidly growing in the Baltics, the climate sector is still vastly underfunded. Read more about the current CEE startup scene trends here.

• CyberCare is part of Tesonet. It helps tech companies provide customer support by adding a human touch mixed with a splash of innovative solutions. The company, in particular, develops tools such as chatbots to help communicate with customers.
• CyberCare is based in Vilnius with an additional office in Kaunas. The company employs up to 420 people and serves clients in more than 170 countries.
• The new office in Lviv will become the third support hub of CyberCare. The company plans to hire support specialists first, with developers and programmers to be hired later, as needed.
• The location was chosen for a reason. The company wanted to support Ukraine, which suffers from the unprovoked war started by Russia, and its people “who are also fighting for our freedom.” CyberCare believes that the employment of people in the war zone contributes to the economy of Ukraine.
• But the main reason is that there are many competent young specialists in Lviv whose expertise is quite relevant for CyberCare, said CEO Dainius Vanagas.

The Warsaw-based matchmaking platform for startups and investors, Vestbee, has prepared the CEE startups funding report for Q2 of 2022. AIN.Capital shares key points.

• During the second quarter of 2022, as many as 242 funding rounds were closed (only 205 have been fully disclosed in terms of amount, month, participating investors, and company details), which is nine investments more than 233 closed in Q1.
  • In April, the startups collectively secured over €570 million in funding over 68 rounds.
  • Over €900 million raised over 73 funding rounds in May.
  • In June, more than €530 million raised in 64 investment rounds.
• Total funding in Q2 2022 reached just over €2 billion. It is €400 million more compared to Q1 2022 and nearly €1 billion more than in Q2 2021.

According to Crunchbase, though the Q2 2022 funding in Europe plummeted to $23.7 billion — down by 38% in comparison to $38 billion in Q2 last year, the CEE startup scene is increasingly growing.

• The countries having the majority of funding on their part are:
  • Poland — closed 93 rounds with a total of over €230 million in funding.
  • Czech Republic — closed 37 rounds with over €540 million.
  • Estonia — closed 28 rounds with around €100 million.
• Though Poland topped the chart by the number of funding, Croatia was leading in terms of the investment volume, which exceeded €620M in Q2 2022.
• The biggest investment rounds belong to:
  • €500 million in Series D was raised by Rimac Group, a Croatian global automotive manufacturer.
  • €220 million in Series D was closed by Rohlik, a Czech innovative grocery delivery startup.
  • €142 million in venture round secured by Ataccama, a Czech global software company.
  • €92 million in venture round raised by Nord Security, a Lithuanian cybersecurity firm.
  • €90 million in Series B was acquired by SEON, a Hungarian fraud detection API.

• Among the most active investors during Q2 were Change Ventures, MITON, Geek Ventures, Hiventures, Movens Capital, Nation 1, Startup Wise Guys, Credo Ventures, and DEPO Ventures. Shortly they were followed by Early Game Ventures, EEC Ventures, Hoxton Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Presto Ventures, Purple Ventures, and SMOK Ventures.
• The most popular industries grabbing investors’ attention were Automotive, Delivery Services, and E-commerce. However, Financial Services, AI, and Data & Analytics remained in the investment circle.

More about the Baltic startup scene performance in the first four months of 2022 you can read in a report AIN.Capital published earlier:

Lithuania has raised almost €6 million, Poland — $3.7 million, and the campaign is still ongoing. Following these countries, Norway and Canada joined the Bayraktar for Ukraine flashmob and supported the initiative of collecting funds to purchase drones. 

AIN.Capital shares the details of those unprecedented crowdfunding initiatives.

Lithuania raised about €6 million in three days

In May, Lithuanian journalist and social media personality Andrius Tapinas launched a nationwide fundraising campaign to buy a Bayraktar TB2 military drone for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Tagged #bayraktarasUkrainai, the campaign aimed to raise €5 million in three weeks. Lithuanians collected about €6 million within three days. After that, the Turkish manufacturer Baykar said it was touched by the solidarity of the Lithuanians and donated a drone. On July 8, a crowdfunded Bayraktar drone arrived in Ukraine.

The Ukrainians donated $20.7 million in three days

Inspired by the Lithuanian example, Ukrainian showman, volunteer, and founder of one of the largest charitable foundations in the country, Serhiy Prytula, announced a crowdfunding campaign to buy three Bayraktar drones for Ukraine. The plan was to raise approximately $17 million (500 million hryvnias) in seven days. However, the Ukrainians collected $20.7 million (600 million hryvnias) within three days. The Baykar response on Twitter was quick:

Baykar will not accept payment for the TB2s and will send 3 UAVs free of charge to the Ukrainian war front. We ask that raised funds be remitted instead to the struggling people of Ukraine. We are touched by this solidarity and resolve in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges,

the company said.

Bayraktar fundraising campaign in Poland is ongoing. $3.7 million are collected

At the end of June, Poles decided to join the Bayraktar TB2 for Ukraine flashmob. Polish journalist Slawomir Serakowski announced a fundraiser on his Facebook.

The Lithuanians immediately raised funds, and the company that produces Bayraktar decided to donate one to Ukraine and use the money to help the population. Later the same thing happened with the next three! Now itʼs our turn,

he wrote.

Their goal is $5 million (22.5 million zł). As of July 19, they have already raised $3.7 million.

Now Norway and Canada joined the Bayraktar for Ukraine initiative

Following Poland and Lithuania, Norway supported the initiative of collecting funds to purchase Bayraktar TB2 for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Lithuania collected 1 Bayraktar in three days, Poland collected 3 Bayraktars, and Ukraine collected 3 Bayraktars in a few days. Of course, Norway must do the same — at least!And we must beat the Swedes!

The organizers wrote about its decision to launch a nationwide crowdfunding campaign.

The campaign started on July 18. About $5.5 million (55 million Norwegian Krones) are planned to be collected and transferred to the aid fund at the Ukrainian Embassy. Over $12,700 have already been raised within a day.

On July 19, Canada announced a collection of funds for the Turkish strike drone for the Ukrainian Army. The fundraising campaign was started by Ukrainian-Canadian volunteers from the UAHelp organization. The country plans to raise about $5.5 million (7 million Canadian dollars) to buy Bayraktar as a present for Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24. Almost $10,000 has been raised so far.

The only question that arises is: what country will join Bayraktar for Ukraine next?

• Founded in 2010 by Eimantas Norkunas and Ignas Rubežius, MailerLite provides easy-to-use marketing tools. It allows users to create personalized online marketing campaigns without coding.
• MailerLite operates in the US and Western Europe. The company has over 1.4 million users in 180 markets. It is an entirely remote company that employs around 100 people from over 30 international locations.

“Vercom and MailerLite are connected by similar values. By combining Vercom’s infrastructure know-how and scalability with MailerLite’s digital marketing tools, we will achieve even higher deliverability and efficiency,”

 CEO of Vercom Krzysztof Szyszka comments on the acquisition.

• Vercom is a Polish cloud communications platform provider that has been operating since 2005. It enables companies to develop relationships with recipients through multiple channels. With the acquisition of MailerLite, Vercom will join global CPaaS market leaders like Twilio and Sinch.
• Together, MailerLite and Vercom will become the go-to platform for all of a business’s external communications, including email, Chat, SMS, voice, and Push notifications.

Operating in 32 global markets, and serving more than 3 million company’s customers in various countries of the world, as well as in Lithuania, SumUp has worked with Paysolut as business partners for the past two years, making the acquisition a natural extension of the partnership. As a provider of core banking solutions designed to empower growing businesses, Paysolut is a natural fit in terms of SumUp’s acquisition strategy.

Becoming part of SumUp will help Paysolut expand its highly qualified team and offer a new level of quality products. In terms of Paysolut’s future, SumUp intends for the company to run its business as usual. SumUp will support additional resources so that Paysolut continues serving its customers at an even greater capacity than before.

“The goal of each company is to grow and expand their services and markets. Becoming a significant part of a global player like SumUp gives us the opportunity not only to strengthen our products but also to present them to a significantly larger number of customers worldwide. We are happy that solutions created in Lithuania will become more important in the world. This also presents a tremendous opportunity for Paysolut current and future team members to grow and learn together with SumUp.” says Vytenis Pavalkis, co-founder, and CEO of Paysolut.

This time we prepared a short article about Practica Capital VC fund. 

When the fund was launched?

Our latest fund was launched in 2019. 

What is your investment focus?

Practica Capital is a dedicated BalticVC focusing on early-stage tech investments in the Baltic (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) and Baltic-origin (e.g. Baltic diaspora, other Baltic links) ventures in Europe. Selectively, we also invest in neighboring Europe (Nordics, Germany, Poland, Eastern neighbors). We have experience investing in AI & ML, Robotics, Mobility, Marketplaces&Platforms, Medtech and hardware, SaaS, Fintech, Spacetech, and some other verticals.

What is the average investment amount?

We invest from €200K to €2M+ in seed, early-stage ventures as a cross-industrial investor focused on backing great teams behind the tech-driven businesses from the region. Usually, start with ~500k tickets. 

How many deals does the fund make per year?

We do around 7-10 new deal per year

Does the fund invest only in Lithuanian startups or in foreign projects too?

We invest in the Baltic (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) and Baltic-origin ventures in Europe. Selectively, we also invest in neighboring Europe (Nordics, Germany, Poland, Eastern neighbors).

What does the fund offer except the investments?

We are an active investor and try to lead or co-lead, also ready to be active in follow-on rounds. Can syndicate and pool rounds. We have specific operational know-how and experience in some verticals and are ready to be involved in certain strategic issues. 

This time we prepared short article about Iron Wolf Capital VC fund.

Iron Wolf Capital is a seed-stage VC fund from the Baltics investing in disruptive technologies with a global mindset. They prefer deep tech and other solutions with solid, defensible competitive advantage and teams that can show the ability to sell the current solution.

When the fund was launched?

In 2019 started investing

What is your investment focus? 

AI, IoT, SaaS, Deeptech, Fintech, Marketplaces

What is the average investment amount? 

€500K

How many deals does the fund make per year? 

5-10

Does the fund invest only in Estonian startups or in foreign projects too? 

Even if we focus on the Baltics, we can invest in any company from the EU.

What does the fund offer except the investment?

Helping to accelerate growth and build big businesses: hiring, governance, strategy, sales, product strategy, management/metrics, as well as intros using our network (new clients & funds for next fundraising).

• DappRadar explores and analyzes the best blockchain decentralized apps (dapps). Founded in 2018, DappRadar monitors seven blockchains: ETH, EOS, TRON, IOST, LOOM, ONT, ThunderCore, collecting data about all applications in them. DappsRadar makes it possible to find out the number of users, the amount of cryptocurrency at the address of the smart contract, the number of transactions, user activity, and so on. In addition, the service is actively engaged in countering scammers. First of all, it detects fake traffic generated by bots and application owners. In 2019 the company raised $2.3 million in a seed round led by Naspers Ventures.
  
• Oxipit is a deep learning startup that solves medical and radiological problems. They are the leaders in AI medical imaging. Founded in 2017, the company aims to introduce innovative Artificial Intelligence/Deep Learning breakthroughs to everyday clinical practice, including computer diagnostics, pathology localization, and visual search. Medtech raised $1.7 million in a seed round in 2019.
  
• NEO Finance is the first and, so far, the only Lithuanian P2P platform operator. Founded in 2015, the company offers the possibility to invest in the loans of Lithuanian consumer credit receivers. Also, the platform has been offering its investors solid returns of 12-18%. NEO Finance has reached more than $1 million monthly issues. In 2019 they carried out its IPO, selling almost 193K shares for over $720K.
  
• GOSU.ai is a company focused on gaming data and AI. Founded in 2017 by the world’s leading experts in computer games Alisa Chumachenko, GOSU provides its users with a personalized guide to AI-powered tools to improve their gaming skills. A real-time voice assistant has also recently been added, which offers players strategy, tactics, motivation, and feedback for users. The startup has raised $2.9 million under the leadership of Brighteye Ventures.
  
• IDenfy is an online identity verification company, helps to reduce frauds and makes business smoother and more profitable. The company created its product to help businesses comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) rules and support electronic identity verification requirements. iDenfy software makes online identity verification through a smartphone or any computer device. Crunchbase reports, that IDenfy has raised a total of $363K in funding over four rounds.
  
• Profitus is a Real Estate crowdfunding and investment platform, an intermediary between investors, who want to receive funding for business ideas and real estate projects. Founded in 2017, the main goal of the company is to make investment available to everyone. Investments start at $120 and the platform is open 24/7. Different projects have different security tools that users can access in self-service for each project.  In 2019 Profitus raised $10.8 million.
  
• Bankera is an international payment services business, offering solutions to individuals and companies. The fintech platform is built with a focus on digital businesses. They are building a bank alternative for the blockchain era. Having raised over $120 million through its ICO in 2018, they renewed its website in 2019, launched a new product, Bankera Loans, and its existing product Spectrocoin reached around 1 million customers.
  
• Qoorio is a mobile app company for sharing life learnings and knowledge. Founded in 2018, Qoorio is aimed to create a platform that would enable any human to learn from any other human in the world and to increase learning possibilities beyond close social circles. In 2019, Qoorio closed two financing rounds and attracted $2.9 million. The first round of $643K was led by Change Ventures and the second-round was led by Mangrove Capital with $2.3 million investment.
  
•  Evarvest unites the world’s stock exchanges, making it simple to invest in the brands you know and love without commission. Founded in 2018, they are making investing as simple as having a smartphone. It offers over 8,000 stocks to choose from and over 30 stock exchanges around the world. Evarvest has raised a total of $276K in funding over two rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 14, 2019, from an Equity Crowdfunding round, Crunchbase reports.
  
• LastMile is a same-day grocery delivery service. Users can make orders from different stores and the company is promising delivery within one hour. It offers over 10,000 products and soon they want to expand from Vilnius and Klaunas to other regions. LastMile has raised a total of $120K in funding over three rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Jan 27, 2020, from a Seed round, Crunchbase reports.