The Baltics on the rise: Meet the startups with the highest funding rounds in 2021

The recent Dealroom report of Central and Eastern European startup scenery shined the light on the success stories of the region. According to the report, companies founded in CEE have a combined enterprise value of over €186 billion, up 19x since 2010. At the same time, VC investments to the area are on the rise, with 2021 being on track for 2.3x growth compared to previous all-time-high in 2019, surpassing 4B€. 

 

I decided to narrow down the focus and take a closer look at the Baltics. It became evident that 2021 has been an exceptional, and in many cases record-breaking year for the Baltic startups. This includes record amount of VC money flowing into the ecosystem, highest ever round raised, a new unicorn for Estonia and the first one for Latvia, and some of the highest seed rounds announced by the local startups.

Here’s what 2021 looked like in terms of VC funding.

🇱🇹 Lithuania reported a record of 311M€ of funding in the first half (!) of 2021, largely due to the megaround of Vinted. Highlights of 2021 include:

🦄 Vinted – $303M, led by EQT Ventures taking the valuation to $4.5B

TransferGo – $50M raised from Elbrus Capital and Black River Ventures (BRV)

Interactio – Multilingual Meetings Solution – $30M led by Eight Roads and Storm Ventures

PVcase – $23M, raised from Elephant Venture Capital and others

kevin. – $10M, led by Speedinvest and OTB Ventures 

Whatagraph – $7.2M raised from LitCapital and others

 

🇱🇻 Latvia celebrated their first ever unicorn.

🦄 Printful – $130M raised from Bregal Sagemount bringing the valuation to over 1B€

Lokalise – $50M raised from CRV and others

Printify – $50M, led by Index Ventures

Whimsical – $30M bagged from Accel and others

 

🇪🇪 Estonia welcomed the 6th unicorn to the ecosystem, congratulated our first decacorn Wise for going public and stood in awe when Bolt raised yet another record round in the Baltics .

🦄 Bolt – 600M€ megaround raised from Sequoia and others, taking the valuation to over 4B€

🦄 Zego – $150M, led by DST Global, putting the company to the unicorn club

Glia – $78M Series C raised from Insight Partners and others

Starship Technologies – $17M, including TDK Ventures and Goodyear Ventures

Scoro – $16.4M Series B raised from Kennet Partners and others

Katana Manufacturing ERP – $11M bagged from Atomico and others

PACTUM – $11M, led by Atomico

Lightyear – $8.5M, led by Mosaic Ventures

Single.Earth – $7.9M raised in a notable Seed round, led by EQT Ventures

What an exciting time for the Baltics! Looking forward to seeing what 2022 has to offer!

PS. This list is meant as illustrative and should not be treated as conclusive but do let me know if I missed anything important on [email protected].