The Baltics

The world’s largest start-up festival, Slush will take place in Helsinki on November 16-17, but Slush isn’t just the official single event. Slush Week, running from Nov 14-18, is loaded with a good variety of Side Events. Plus, and even no Slush Pass will be needed to access many of these events. Side Events are the perfect way to get …

The Arctic15 Helsinki takes place on June, 7-8, 2022. Before the unforeseen pandemic hiatus, the event attracted over 1500+ Startups, VCs, CVCs, Angels, and Investors to get together. For this year, the arranging committee has some realistic numbers drafted: “We aim for 300+ investors, 450+ startups, 150+ corporates, a maximum of 2000 attendees and again – the name of the …

The Lithuanian based startup Watalook is striving to redefine the beauty tech market with its digital assistant for independent beauty professionals across the U.S. Watalook has experienced a growth of over 30% in users each month and has recently raised $1M in the pre-seed round co-led by Startup Wise Guys, Crosspring, Launchpad Capital, and angel investors. Watalook provides a platform …

Civinity, one of the largest facility management and engineering groups in the Baltic states, has announced the launch of their new investment management firm called Pentaframe Capital. Pentaframe Capital plans to invest up to €15 million across the following five years, with focus on real estate, facility management, and smart city tech startups across Europe. By Rūta Lapinskienė  Pentaframe Capital plans …

According to reports from, European Capital,  Danske Bank and i5invest, European VC and PE funds have been substantially gaining ground despite Covid-19, and a substantial margin in the Nordics are focusing on investments in energy and sustainability. Norway, Denmark, and Lithuania have a particularly strong focus on investments in these areas in 2021 compared to the rest of Europe, and …

Latvia’s Nordigen has announced a new €2.1 million investment to expand their freemium model after growing to support more than 1000 European bank APIs.  Investors include Black Pearls VC, Inventure, Highgoal Capital, ID4 Ventures, Calchas Holding and angel investors from across the Baltics including Artis Kehris, Henry Nilert, Gerri Kodres and Riivo Anton. The startup is challenging Tink and other …

Summer of 2021 is closing in, and as the world is seeing a surge in optimism with the influx of vaccines, Kiuas, the #1 startup accelerator in Finland, brings exciting news about expansion. Kiuas today revolves around the startup accelerator programs, and with the changing world, it makes to evolve the flagship program, Kiuas Accelerator, to the next level as …

As in many countries during the pandemic, contactless payments have been on the rise in Lithuana.   The country has chosen to make Fintech a national priority and has updated the process for business licensing for Fintech companies. By Lukas Pereckas “The whole Fintech ecosystem here is so developed – business support networks, clear efficient regulation, lawyers who know the field …

A small nation of fewer than 2 million people, Latvia is one of Europe’s entrepreneurial hotspots. There are several advantages that ensure that Latvia is a great place for startups starting from a multilingual workforce, affordable costs for operations, a high standard of living, and government support. Latvia has a booming startup ecosystem and a high number of ingenious up-and-comers …

There was a bullish attitude among attendees at this year’s online version of the Arctic15 startup event that investment in Northern European startups was picking up despite a second wave of COVID19 across the region. With one of the main themes of the event being cross-border angel investing, several new angel investment syndicates were established to boost funding opportunities for …

Due to the current Coronavirus crisis, supply chains around the world are being disrupted. Cargo Stream – a logistics management system established in Lithuania, is proposing a solution that optimize logistics processes and utilizes the potential of communication between the carriers, recipients, and logistics companies. Cargo Stream enables companies to manage logistics documentation and data more precisely, and shifts information …

Situated in Northern Europe, Estonia is home to around 325 million people. Back in 1991, when Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union, it was a relatively poor country. However, this relatively small country, that includes around 1500 islands, has slowly but surely made its mark by evolving into a top startup nation. But how did they do it? By …

Countries all over the globe incline to hiring developers for startups as their business model as it is a modern, proactive, and effective solution in the business world. With remote employees that work for your project from around the world, you get maximum efficiency and cut costs considerably. But can this scenario be applied to startups in the Nordic countries? …

The accelerator program Accelerate Estonia and Garage48 organized an online hackathon to develop solutions to help Estonia emerge from the coronavirus crisis and create competitive advantages for the post-crisis period. By Elis Tootsman The initiative, which has become the largest online hackathon in Estonia, was opened by President Kersti Kaljulaid and Minister of Foreign Trade and Information Technology Kaimar Karu. …

At Startup Fair Lithuania last week, the city of Vilnius touted it’s position as a city-sized sandbox to develop and test new products.  A radical open data policy that rivals Estonia’s and a slew of startup friendly regulations make Vilnius a startup ecosystem to watch. Startup Fair Lithuania, an annual event bringing together the local startup ecosystem, takes a refreshingly …