Thank you Tech-Park Kaunas for inviting us to join annual Kaunas startup awards! Our fund partner Audrius Milukas had an honour to learn more about startups from Kaunas and help to select the winners. Congratulations goes to: Turimeda OPTAS SynHet - Synthetic Heterocycles EXOLITUS TutoTOONS PIOAS dHealthIQ B.V. LightMirror. 🦄 Keep innovating! #venturecapital #startups #tech
Congrats, Mantas Radvila !
Thank you for invitation!
Thank you Audrius for your team support and commitment!
Klaudija Budreikaitė led a workshop during the first session of the newly launched Cleantech Catalyst Incubator at Sunrise Tech Park 🚀 Among many ways Sunrise Tech Park contributes to expanding the cleantech community in Lithuania, Cleantech Catalyst Incubator is the newest initiative which gathers early-stage companies for a series of workshops and has invited Klaudija to share the knowledge and interact with seven cleantech startups that we believe will make a significant impact in the cleantech sector🌱 With such good company the presentation turned into a discussion about potential challenges and a brainstorming session on potential ways to overcome it💪 Thanks for such a great attendance Tomas Byckovas from Biohifas, Ausra Baradoke from Deep Scientific, Monika Narušytė from Nuar, Daumantas Simėnas from Restorie, HONICS, Ekomūras and Water Shield, and the best of luck to the participants going forward with the programme!🙌 Many thanks for the invitation and kudos to Sunrise Tech Valley for spotting founders with great potential so early🌟 #startups #cleantech #catalyst #incubator #venturecapital
Last week Open Circle Capital team Audrius Milukas, Klaudija Budreikaitė and Juozapas Zabulis had pleasure to visit Gamybos inovacijų slėnis / Manufacturing Innovation Valley and take a deeper look at how innovation takes place within manufacturing industry. Klaudija even got to experience it first hand!👷♀️ Manufacturing Innovation Valley (Manuvalley) is a Digital Innovation Hub based in Vilnius that creates sustainable innovation ecosystem for manufacturing players in Baltics. The platform works as both incubator and accelerator and is accommodating 15 manufacturing laboratories for small manufacturers, startups, technology developers and researchers carrying out manufacturing activities, creating digital innovations and testing ideas. It was truly interesting to listed to BaltLED, Sprana, Ltd, Ricardas Razgaitis, Micromolds, Diodela, GN Precision, Daiva Urbanavičienė and Alius Kubilius presentations on disruptive solutions that your teams have been working on. Thank you Jolanta Zubkauskienė, Rolandas Lepardinas and Gintautas Kvietkauskas for hosting us and of course biggest thank you for dr. Modestas Plakys for inviting us. It was very inspiring to see so many innovations being born under one roof 🚀 Will definitely be coming back! #innovationhub #manufacturingindustry #startups
Happy 6th birthday, Lithuanian Business Angel Network LitBAN🥳 We are proud to see the growth achieved during the 6 years of operation. Back in 2017 Audrius Milukas was one of the founding members of LitBAN and today the association has managed to grow its member count to 350+ and still counting! The angel community has significantly contributed to the Lithuanian startup ecosystem 💪 This would not have been possible without key members of the association, kudos to Rita Sakus, Vladas Lašas, Martynas Kandzeras, Gytenis Galkis and Roberta Rudokiene for making this happen🙌 #LitBAN #birthday #celebration #startups #venturecapital
Our portfolio company's Whatagraph CEO & Co-founder Justas Malinauskas was featured in 15min article, where he shared his journey in leading a startup that has raised a Series A round. Find his lessons learned, and advice for future startup founders in the article below👏💡
„Aš suprantu, kad kai kuriems mano mąstymas gali nepatikti, tačiau aš ir nesijaučiu įsipareigojęs visiems įtikti. Todėl mes ir kuriame startuolius – neturime būtinybės gyvenime kitiems būtinai įtikti“, – sako Justas Malinauskas, įkūręs ir pastaruosius 10 metų su komanda vystantis rinkodaros duomenų analitikos platformą Whatagraph. Šių metų pradžioje „Whatagraph“ pranešė, kad plečia veiklą ir tampa rinkodaros duomenų analitikos platforma – pokytį padiktavo ir klientų lūkesčiai, ir besikeičianti verslo aplinka. Pasak Justo Malinausko, jei šiandien reiktų pasirinkti vieną žodį, kokie metai technologijų kompanijų laukia, šis būtų „drąsa“ („brave“), su ne mažiau svarbia pasitikėjimo savimi nata. „Nėra jokių receptų. Žmonėms reiktų nustoti tų receptų ieškoti. Žmonės nori būti turtingi kaip Elon Musk, gražūs kaip Richard Gere, sportiški kaip Kobe Bryant ir pan., tačiau tu negali išsirinkti tik tam tikrų dėlionės dalių. Pasekmės yra tavo pasirinkimų kaina. Nori šio gyvenimo, ar ne? Jei ne, tapk savimi. Kurk savo receptą, savo gyvenimą ir nekopijuok kitų. Daug skaityti, daug girdėti, bet vadovautis savo unikalumu – ko reikia startuoliuose, tai unikalumo, koks jis bebūtų“, – savo požiūriu į asmeninį ir verslo augimą dalijasi pašnekovas. Startuolio „Whatagraph“ istorija prasidėjo dar 2014-aisiais, kai Justas Malinauskas vadovavo skaitmeninės rinkodaros agentūrai – klientams komanda ruošdavo daugybę ataskaitų, kol kilo mintis pastarąsias vizualizuoti ir automatizuoti, apjungiant skirtingus kanalus. „Whatagraph“ – Nyderlandų kompanija, turinti biurą Lietuvoje, tačiau globalų verslą, kuris išaugo iki per 60-ies žmonių komandos, Klaipėdoje pradėjo Justas Malinauskas kartu su broliais. -- “I know that some people may not like the way I think, but then again, I don’t feel responsible for pleasing everyone. And that’s why we build startups – because we’re not obliged to please others,” says Justas Malinauskas of Whatagraph, a marketing data analytics platform that he co-founded and has been developing for the past 10 years with his team. Early this year, Whatagraph announced an expansion of operations, becoming a marketing data analytics platform – a change dictated by client expectations and changes in the business environment. According to Justas Malinauskas, if he had to choose a single word to describe the type of year ahead of tech companies, it would be “brave”, but with a crucial touch of self-confidence. “Recipes don’t exist, so people should stop looking. Everyone wants to be rich like Elon Musk, attractive like Richard Gere, athletic like Kobe Bryant, etc., but you can’t just pick and choose. Consequences are the price of your choices. Do you want this life or not? If not – become yourself. Build your own recipe, your own life, and stop being a copycat. Do read and listen – a lot, but also follow your uniqueness, whatever it may be, as that is exactly what startups need,” he said, explaining his views of personal and business growth.
How to turn 1 billion into 10 billion? OCC partner Audrius Milukas shared his take on this during yesterday's Lietuvos Davosas conference📢 - Startups play crucial role in technological innovation in Lithuania and respectively Lithuanian economic growth overall🤖 - The Lithuanian state has distributed more than €100+ million to VCs. This has accelerated VCs investments into startups that later were able to attract an additional VC investments for a total of €1+ billion from foreign investors. Mathematics is clear!✔️ - Startups paid almost €400+ million in taxes in 2023, which is 23% increase from 2022📈 Many thanks to the presenters for sharing their insights during the Session of Investment Potential Jolanta Jurga, Marius Dubnikovas, Ilja Laurs, and Vilius Bernatonis💡 And thanks to panelists for the engaging discussion during the Session on Promoting Technological Progress Ausrine Armonaite, Dainius Vilčinskas, Lukas Savickas, Marius Stasiukaitis, and Elena Mickevičienė🙌 We are sure that the Lithuanian startup ecosystem will continue to have a significant impact on the development and innovation of our country, and are looking forward to its success!🤝 #venturecapital #startup #Lithuania #unicorns
On Wednesday, we and our friends Vendep Capital held an insightful session for our startup community "Expanding to the US: Playbooks and Archetypes" at Tech Zity🦅 Sakari Pihlava and Janiina Lammi shared strategies and insights on what is a very relevant topic for startups: successfully expanding to the dynamic US market! We are glad to see that so many startups joined us🙌 Big thanks to Rūta Grėskaitė and Karolina Urbonaitė from Startup Lithuania for help in organizing the event!🌟
Our community is our power! On Tuesday we threw a little get together for our fund's friends as all OCC team was in Vilnius. Jens Kristian Damsgaard, Will Cardwell, Meri Helleranta and Audrius Milukas presented emerging market trends as well as recent fund's updates 🚀 We also invited startups from portfolio and community to share their journey and recent achievements. Special thanks to Mindaugas Eglinskas @ PIXEVIA, Justas Malinauskas @ Whatagraph, Justinas Balčiūnas @ Ligence, Ilya Malkin @ Sort A Brick and Marius Jurgilas @ Axiology for presentations and once again proving that Lithuanian has some great frontliners!🙌 We had a blast catching-up with our friends and sharing valuable insights. In fact, we're already thinking about next get together, so stay tuned!🌟
Our fund partner Jens Kristian Damsgaard, after returning from his trip to Ukraine had the honor to share his thoughts with Danish finance news website Finans! 🎤🌐 "We can help – and make money – at the same time. Ukrainian entrepreneurs are fighting "with their backs against the wall" and assisting the Ukrainian military with new technologies. However, they lack support, and an investment here could benefit all parties". You can find the full article in Danish in the comments.
We are joining forces with Vendep Capital in organising a workshop session on the topic "Expanding to the US: Playbooks and Archetypes" on March 13th at Vilnius Tech Park! 🌎 If you are a startup of at least Seed stage and expanding to US is of importance to your business, this event is exactly for you! During the workshop Sakari Pihlava will present the different types of archetypes when it comes to US expansion strategies. You will be able to determine which archetype your business belongs to and apply the strategy to US expansion accordingly. Expect interactive content🚀 More details coming soon! Link to a free registration form in the comments. And of course, big thanks for the help in organizing to our friends at Startup Lithuania and Innovation Agency Lithuania! #B2B #SaaS #Startups #Vilnius #Lithuania #USexpansion #expansionstrategy
Jens Kristian Damsgaard keeps traversing the globe!✈️🌎 This week he participated in deep-tech event AUTM 24 organized in San Diego, California, where tech transfer experts from around the globe meet to connect, discuss and share insights on next best technologies that are coming out of universities. #startups #venturecapital #deeptech
Managing partner@Science Ventures A/S | Partner@OpenCircle Capital | Business angel
The annual #AUTM conference in San Diego about commercializing university inventions and know-how has ended. I am excited by one of my main takeaways: more universities are taking on new responsibilities and becoming active players in the venture capital space. New business models emerge, and new technologies will find a faster, safer route to market and impact areas like security, health, and energy. #technologytransfer #deeptech #venturecapital #startups
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