BalticVC

Estonian young tech companies showed growth in turnover by 17% to €1Bln in the first six months of 2023, compared to the same period in 2022. Bolt (€592M), Veriff (€38M), Swappie (€32,4M), Viseven (€16,5M) and Crezu (€15,8M) had the highest turnover. The turnover of Bolt, Crezu, and Viseven in the first six months of 2023 increased almost twice compared  to Q1 2023. 

Six Baltic fintech companies joined  a list of the top 200 businesses, made by German data platform Statista and the US business news TV channel and online media CNBC. 

Estonia joined  the list of countries, which invest in Generative AI startups the most. The Baltic country took the 9th spot. Before Estonia are Sweden, Germany, the UK, Canada, Israel, and other countries. The US is the leader in this list. All the data were accumulated by the data platform Dealroom starting from 2019 till 2023.

Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia topped Emerging Europe ’s annual ranking of investment promotion agencies (IPA). Estonia with its IPA Invest Estonia holds first place for four years already, outperforming the competitors in innovation, creativity, support, and community-building components. Invest Estonia is followed by the Lithuanian agency Invest Lithuania. This year it improved the indicator of support and community building. 

Baltic startups expect at least 15% turnover growth in 2023, according to the Baltic Business Outlook survey, which was conducted by Latvian SEB bank. 23% of polled Estonian startups, which participated in the survey, are expecting their turnover to grow by more than 15%, the same forecast has 50% of Latvian startups and 29% of Lithuanian startups.

Baltic countries ranked among the 40 top best countries to found a startup, according to the StartupBlink Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2023. Estonia became a leader among the Baltic countries and got the 14th position. It is followed by Lithuania, which is in 17th place, and Latvia appeared 39th in this rank.

Former employees of five Estonian and two Lithuanian unicorns founded 60 new tech companies in the Baltic region. US venture capital fund Accel and data platform Dealroom published a report "The founder-factories and the founder's journey of European and Israeli startups", in which they made a list of unicorns, whose ex-employees founded the most amount of new companies in Europe and Israel. They took a period starting from pre-2010 till February 28, 2023.

In 2022, capital raised by Baltic venture funds reached €298M, which was 130% more than in the same period of 2021. Baltic funds completed over 220 transactions, with year-over-year (YoY) growth of 44%. They have invested €212M into Baltic companies. In 2022, the funds made 50 exits, and 153 investments outside of the Baltics region. 

Estonian startups showed growth in turnover by a third in the Q1 of 2023, generated to €568M. It is 34% more than in the same period of 2022. This data is based on the quarterly data from the Estonian Tax and Customs Board. The largest turnovers were generated by Bolt (€290M), Swappie (€26M),  Veriff (€20M), Crezu (€8M), and Viseven (€7,8M).

EstBAN angel investors invested  more than €13,39M in 36 startups in 2022. It is twice less than in 2021 when the number of investments amounted to €29M. €8,3M was invested through business angels and €4,89M - through venture funds. The number of investments in crowdfunding projects dropped from 21% to 17% and amounted to €200K in 2022. 78% of investment was made in Estonian startups. 

Lithuanian fund Firstpick made a report for 2022-2023 about venture investments tendency in Baltic countries, which showed that in the first quarter of 2023, there were more business angel and bridge rounds. Accelerators and business angels invested €1,6M in 10 startups, and four companies raised €28,5M in bridge rounds. And there were only five seed rounds closed, with a total amount of €9,5M, two series B and later stage rounds with a total sum of €31M, and no series A rounds.

Estonia topped the list of Emerging Europe’s IT competitiveness index 2023, which includes 23 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Lithuania took the second spot, and Latvia appeared in the fourth place.

Startups from Estonian Tartu and Ida-Viru counties increased their turnover in 2022, compared to 2021. 106 startups, based in Tartu County, made a turnover of €88M in 2022. That is 30% more than the year before. The largest turnover of €18,7M showed SMS Lead Generation Service for Businesses Messente Communications.

Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian startups raised €1.603 bln this year compared to €1.894 bln in 2021. The data, collected  by the Lithuanian management company Firstpick, revealed that the total amount of venture investment in Baltic countries decreased from 191 in 2021 to 124 (if to count until December 2022). The amount of investment fell to 15%.