🚀 ZapytajVC presents the latest episode of the "Roadtrip" series, this time visiting 🇱🇹 Lithuania! Our guest is Tomas Kemtys (General Partner at Contrarian Ventures, ex-Centerview Partners), who discusses:
- 🔍 the explosive growth of the Lithuanian startup ecosystem – from emerging market to European powerhouse in just 5-6 years
- 🦄 Lithuanian unicorns (Vinted, Nord Security/NordVPN) and their unique paths to success – one VC-backed, one bootstrapped to $1.5B+ valuatio
- 💰 the role of public funding (Invega, EIF) in kickstarting the Baltic VC ecosystem and the transition to private capita
- 🌍 why Lithuania's 2.5M population drives global ambition from day one – no domestic market comfort zon
- 📈 Lithuania's fastest-growing startup ecosystem in CEE (6.8x growth in 5 years) while Estonia leads in unicorns per capita
- 🤝 how Polish VCs (Inovo, Market One Capital, Movens) are winning deals in Lithuania and competing with top Western European funds
- ⚡ Contrarian Ventures' climate-tech focus and why seed-stage climate founders are building the infrastructure of tomorrow
- 🇵🇱 the "Poland problem" – why 40M people can be both blessing and curse for startup ambition
- 💚 NEW: Contrarian's first Polish investment – sun.store (€6M seed round, €100M GMV marketplace for solar equipment)
Key ecosystem players mentioned: Practica Capital, firstpick, ScaleWolf, Tesonet Group, Kilo Health, PVcase, Index Ventures, Accel, Warburg Pincus
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Tomas' LinkedIn profile🌐
Contrarian Ventures☀️
sun.store 👉 Subscribe to ZapytajVC for more insights from CEE VC markets! 🇵🇱
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