Cornerstone

Welcome! Let’s talk about fundamentals this week - thrilled to have Thomas Plantenga sharing more about Pamatai, an investigative journalism prize. As tech continues to shape the future of the Baltics, we also been thinking about capital and exits — and what building structural advantage could look like.

Warm welcome InRento, a leading platform for asset-backed investment in real estate projects (founder Gustas started building early!) Thank you becoming a sponsor and supporting this community.

work in progress

The visiting investors. Which non-Baltic VCs have built best portfolio in the Baltics? Market One Capital, NordicNinja, Inovo, Inventure, others? The vote is still out, and here are their respective Baltic portcos (only announced deals)

Weaponize exits and capital. Baltic M&A is moving. Brolis Defence got huge PE backing. TopSport just landed a massive deal. Printful + Printify merger. But where Baltics could build something structurally different, is by deploying capital into high-potential business. Seeing several pathways for impact — Tesonet, Plural, Vinted, Draugiem Group are putting capital behind builders and operators. Exits can and should lead to new ventures, as well as promising Baltic category winners (in defence, engineering, other sectors) could use capital to build European / global players via M&A. More below.

People moves. Kart Siilats as the new Chair of SmartCap’s Supervisory Board. Kęstutis Tyla joined Ovoko as Head of Expansion. Matas is joining Favonius Energy as a founding engineer. Matas joins Ace Waves Agent Engineering team. Jonas Bučinskas is now Supply Product Director at Ovoko. Jana Budkovskaja joined BSV Ventures as a Partner. Rokas is now CMO of a Business Unit at Kiloverse.

Andrus Purde did not change roles, but says that in many ways, running a five-person tech startup is exactly like running a five-person hair salon - fun writing!

CMOs 2026 — Ada (Nordcurrent) wins the award, Kristina (Hostinger), Raimonda (Artea) and Vytautas (pigu.lt) land special prizes

AI. Estonia's TOP10 AI startups in 2026.

sponsors

Cloudvisor [now offering stress-free migration from any cloud to AWS]
Hostinger [online presence accessible to everyone worldwide, hiring]
Google For Startups [cloud credits up to $350K, faster growth]
Oxylabs [Step into the world of web data gathering]
VIALET [Business accounts for growth, hiring]
Surfshark [Top 50 among fastest growing in EU, hiring]
15MIN Group [all the news you need to know]
Eldorado.gg [world’s largest in-game trading marketplace, hiring]
Saily [eSIM data for international travel, hiring]
InRento [Lower-risk investments in real estate projects with income, growth, and impact]

rounds and capital

Mediatech expands wellness portfolio with the acquisition of Wareable - a leading website covering wearable tech, smart home, and health innovation.

Estonian Validfor raises $1.2 mililion pre-seed to cut pharma validation timelines from months to weeks - led by DOMiNO Ventures, with participation from Curiosity VC and a group of angel investors

Pickmybrain raises €1.8 million to build AI-powered “Digital Brains” for experts and celebrities - backed by range of angel investors.

Nter's company Own Leasing, an alternative leasing platform in the Baltics, has closed EUR 50M in funding from a Luxembourg-based fund.

three questions

Thomas Plantenga, CEO of Vinted, surprised everyone by launching Pamatai - an investigative journalism prize in Lithuania, built on an evergreen foundation model. He donated EUR 2.2M and has already raised more than a million euros more from the local tech community.

It is a €200K prize awarded every calendar year to the best investigative journalist; note that 2026 nominations must be submitted by May 6th.

What impact from Pamatai would make you most proud?

I hope that in the next two decades Lithuania will continue to prosper, and that the average income per capita will be equal to the Netherlands. The Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024 showed that the most important driver of a country’s economic success is well-governed institutions that protect property rights, promote equal opportunities, and uphold the rule of law. In Lithuania, despite progress since independence, corruption continues to challenge governmental institutions and companies. Recent high-profile controversies have revealed weaknesses at the highest levels of public life, underscoring the urgent need for accountability and transparency. Investigative journalism is one of the strongest tools available to fight corruption. By uncovering misconduct, holding power to account, and informing citizens, journalists play a critical role in strengthening democratic institutions and building a culture of integrity. Lithuania is in the midst of a hybrid war with Russia, so we need to step up if we want to grow stronger.

Beyond your own donation, more than a million euros has already been pledged by the local tech community. What have you been hearing from them in response to your call?

The local tech community has been generous and supportive since I shared the idea with them. It feels amazing to be part of a community that wants the best for their country and is willing to contribute significantly to this. Lithuania can be proud that it has a new generation of leaders who are asking themselves what they can do for their country. I think that the supportive and generous character of Lithuanians is a strength that will help us a lot over the next decades. All in all, it makes me super bullish on Lithuania and Europe—it feels like we can do this. The geopolitical situation is hard now, but we will persevere.

How would you describe your relationship with Lithuania today? It's been more than 10 years since you took that flight to Vilnius…

I love this country and its people. Vinted owes its success to a Lithuanian team that was willing to work very hard through tough times. And over the last 10 years, the government did a good job in letting businesses drive success and letting all boats rise on these rising tides. I'm very grateful for that. Next to that, I feel at home in Lithuanian culture. It's a culture of hard work, no nonsense, and meaningful friendships that give support in hard times. And as a cherry on top, Lithuania is beautiful: endless pine forests, lakes, Neringa, safe city centres with deep historic value, and saunas everywhere—I mean, what is there not to love…

roleplay

brand + design

Atoms & Taste. Capital is flowing into hardware. 54% of 2025 Lithuanian rounds had atoms at the core. Sentante (though the product design itself was outsourced) and Fieldy show what good product design looks like in Baltic hardware. The direction is there, but there's still no Baltic LoveFrom. No Teenage Engineering. Most of it is still seems like being drawn by the engineers who'll build it. Huge opening. Still underutilised.

No designer on payroll, no product. Nikita Bier advised 50+ consumer companies last year. The one thing that separates those who shipped from those who didn’t: Having a full-time designer in the room at all times. No real-time visualization means no real conversation about ideas, no one galvanizing the team around what the thing could feel like. Not pixel-pushers - someone who can think through the fundamental building blocks of product comprehension. Products live and die in the pixels.

founder's guide

“Founder class” will grow - being a manager is becoming low status
How to Launch an AI Company From 0 Today (outreach+content+retarget)
Salaries - actual data on dev salaries in Lithuania

further insights

Brains. Derek Thompson: How 2020s broke our brains
Impact. AI and the UK labour market: the evidence so far (little, but there is always a lag)

ecosystem

Weaponize exits - and capital (on LinkedIn)

Baltic M&A is moving. Brolis Defence got huge PE backing. TopSport just landed a massive deal. Printful + Printify merger.

Where the Baltics could build something structurally different, is by deploying capital into high-potential business. Seeing several pathways for impact.

Smart reinvestment
The format matters less than the operator behind it - can be HoldCo, family office, SPV, fund, whatever. What matters: experienced founders actively backing other founders. Ideally, they get some operational oversight / involvement, too. Plural is doing this at scale with meaningful ticket sizes (also being top European investor now), alongside other activities by Taavet and Sten. True proof of concept? SpringWater is another signal, emerging from Hostinger / Tesonet / Equivia ecosystems. Very new, VATI CAPITAL, is being born after the Skaylink exit to Vodafone. In Latvia, the Draugiem Group model (building a portfolio of internet businesses from internal cashflow) predates this conversation and deserves credit as an early blueprint.

Reverse the exits - grow European winners
Instead of always selling to a foreign strategic, using capital to build consolidators locally. Invalda INVL's Baltic Growth Fund is doing exactly this from PE angle. And there's untapped potential here: consider NT Service at €58M EBITDA (defence) and Light Conversion (lasers) at €43M EBITDA - these are not startups anymore and have significant muscle to grow. Will they be making bolt-on acquisitions across the region, rise to become European category leaders? Reminder that LitCapital-backed Altechna already acquired US firm for growth.

Backing professional investors
Already well-established path, and proven to work - backing accelerator, venture funds, private equity, secondary funds. Building a healthy financing ecosystem for Baltic entrepreneurs.

Platform plays
Tesonet's model is worth studying: direct investments into startups where they find genuine operational synergy. Interestingly, this also include "techifying" established businesses in adjacent industries (consider Artea or sports ventures).A similar motion with Vinted recently. Having them redeploying cashflow into recommerce ventures at Series A is a broader signal. Three vectors are in motion now A) liquidity flowing via local funds and angel tickets B) M&A that Vinted pursues to grow in new markets / verticals and C) Venture to partner with adjacent players to leverage experience and learnings.Exiting to see how bar and ambition rises. Founders going beyond build a business > exit. Keep building, and use the capital for structural advantage and long-term impact.