BalticVC

Cristobal Alonso has left the post of CEO of Estonian Startup Wise Guys after almost ten years of work. The post will be taken up again by the company's founder Herty Tammo. There are other personnel changes at Startup Wise Guys: Priit Uustulnd will become the new COO and partner, and another new partner, Dag Ainsoo, has joined the company.

Marko Kaseleht, co-founder and former head of Estonian defense startup SensusQ , has joined digital transformation company Nortal . At Nortal, he will serve as senior vice president of defense, while at SensusQ he will remain only as a shareholder and member of the supervisory board.

Steve Semelsberger, who headed Estonian technology company Testlio for more than 6 years, has left his post. According to co-founder Kristel Kruustüki, Testlio's COO Summer Weisberg, who has been with the company for about 5 years, will temporarily take over as CEO.

Estonian Business Angels Network (EstBAN) has elected three new board members for the next two years. 

Paulo Cunha has become the new CEO of Pipedrive , an Estonian IT company that develops sales management software. 

Markus Villig, founder and CEO of Bolt, has joined the board of directors of a Swedish fintech company Klarna . 

Startup Estonia presented data on Estonian startups for the year 2024.

Andres Kitter will lead Lightyear 's pan-European operations, while Alvar Lumberg will join the development team, focusing on building the company's global infrastructure. 

Estonian blockchain technology developer Guardtime   has announced plans to cut its staff by 25 people. Given that the company employed 48 people as of the fourth quarter of 2024, this means that just over half of its employees will be cut. 

Kristian Sägi, who headed the Tallinn office of global IT company Dynatrace , has announced that he is no longer with the company. According to Sägi, he simply felt that he wanted to create something unprecedented again, rather than work within fixed boundaries. 

Madis Lehtmets, co-founder of Estonian construction software developer Remato, will head the Estonian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association ( EstVCA ). He will take on the responsibilities of the new CEO in January 2025, which will include maintaining and strengthening the organization’s position as an advocate for the industry's interests and developing relationships with its members, legislators, and other organizations representing the industry in Estonia and abroad.

Wages in the information technology sector in the Baltic countries grew by 7.4%, almost twice as much as in 2023. This is 0.1% less than the forecast (7.5%), according to the study conducted by Figure Baltic Advisory.

Gintare Verbickaite-Baciuliene, former head of the technology sector team at state investment promotion agency Invest Lithuania, has been appointed as the new CEO of Unicorns Lithuania.

Estonian supercapacitor designer Skeleton Technologies has appointed David Arsenault as a senior vice president of business development. He will take over the role of Sebastian Pohlmann, who has been working as Skeleton's VP of business development from 2021 until 2024.

Inga Langaite, CEO of the startup founder association Unicorns Lithuania , will leave her position on 1 June. She has been the head of the association for the past three years.

Estonian ride-hailing platform and application Forus has appointed Loukas Tzitzis as its new CEO. The current CEO, Eduard Dubrovski, will take over the role of chief operations manager at Forus.

In 2023, Lithuanian fintech startups raised only €5,5M of venture fundraising, which is 12 times less than the amount raised in 2022 (€67,9M). This data was noted in the 2023 fintech report of the government investment promotion agency Invest Lithuania. The report highlighted that regtech, green finance, and DeFi, where AI and quantum computing were used a lot, were the main areas that secured investments.

In 2023, Estonian startups and growth companies paid  €323M in employment taxes, which is 18% more than in 2022, when they paid €273M. The Estonian Tax and Customs Board statistics reveal that startups contributed 65% of these taxes, while growth companies contributed the rest 35%. Among the top 10 companies that paid the most taxes were Bolt (€36,9M), money transfer service Wise (€34,9M), and provider of web-based sales CRM Pipedrive (€16,4M).

Anneli Aljas, ex-CEO of bankrupt tax and customs technology company Eurora, has joined the Estonian autonomous delivery vehicle developer Starship Technologies as a vice president of finance. 

Ex-head of Vilnius-based governmental initiative Startup Lithuania Roberta Rudokiene became the new CEO of Lithuanian Business Angel Network (LitBAN). The current Managing Director of LitBAN Justinas Pasys, who will delegate his job to Roberta Rudokiene at the end of November, will work on the syndicate of business angels NGL, which he founded in December 2022. He will also continue facilitating syndicated investments, angel schools, and forming startup advisory boards.