Today, our guest is someone who brings an American-style approach to investing in Baltics. As the Founding Partner at Livonia Private Equity Fund, he has led about 10 major investments in the last 10 years, while those companies are offering jobs for over 1,000 people. Quite often you can see this man on a bike, running or swimming as he is also an Ironman. We explored the story and the setup up Livonia Partners, their proactive, risk-taking philosophy and what it takes to scale businesses succe...
Sep 27, 2024•58 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Today our guest someone, who got into Venture Investment back in 2011. He started off his investment career in Real Estate before becoming one of the founding partners of Practica Capital , the leading Lithuanian Early-Stage fund, focusing on the Baltics. Among other investments, Practica Capital have invested in Montonio , Ovoko , PvCase , TransferGo while recently announcing their fund III, ready to deploy another 80m€ into future success stories of the Baltics. This person is… Donatas Keras...
Jun 21, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 9
Today our guest is someone who has been a Chairman of the biggest Baltic asset management company. He has experience in active fund management across multi asset classes, having managed over 2b € worth of assest across his career. Currently, he is serving as a Managing Director of efTEN , the largest Real Estate fund in the Baltics. We talked about what is a real estate fund, how does it operate and addressed specific example of latest fund of EfTEn - Special Opportunity Fund . This person is Kr...
Apr 23, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Today our guest is someone, who within last several years has became one of the strongest early stage fund GPs in the Baltic region. Despite the fact that she is running marathons, word "acceleration" is not something that fully describes what they do at FIRSTPICK . We talked about how to get access to the deals and pick first, looked intro early stage market in Lithuania and discussed the power of the community as a bridge to foreign markets....
Mar 28, 2024•57 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Today, our guest is someone, who started off his career as an investment banker in NY, handled deals across the globe. Form 2017 he is a Partner in one of the leading Climate tech funds in Europe- Contrarian Ventures . We talk about the perception of ClimateTech, how is it to operate with a Pan-European fund from Lithuania, raising the Fund II during challenging times on the market and touched the importance of the community around Contrarian Ventures and at large. Ladies and Gentlemen, this per...
Mar 14, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Today our guest is someone who has built one of the biggest payday loan companies, Cash On Go, in the UK without even living there. He then successfully managed and grew its spin off, Every-Pay before starting to invest himself. These days he is a CEO of Stebby - the largest wellness marketplace in the Baltics. Stebby was acquired by Livonia Partners in 2022 and our guest was the mastermind behind this transaction. Since then, company has shown outstanding growth and our guest claims there is mo...
Feb 28, 2024•54 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Today, we have a special episode on fff.vc where Akim and Tim share their entrepreneurial adventure in the US. They spent a month exploring Silicon Valley and California, attending the Nevada Trust Conference scouting for potential partners. In this episode, they delve into the numbers: 23 days, 11 cities, approximately 4000km traveled, 5 events attended, and 70 new contacts made. Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of these experiences. They also discuss the impact versus cash multiples, the...
May 31, 2023•56 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Today, our guest is almost a synonym to ClimateTech in Baltics. During his professional career, he has been living Scotland, England, Denmark, Switzeland, before coming back home to Estonia. He is not investing himself but is doing it for company that also invests renewable energy and electrification start-ups - Sunly (https://sunly.ee/). Among other things he is involved in such investments as UpCatalyst, Skeleton Technologies, Comodule and EnergiaSalv. People say that knows if the company is c...
Apr 03, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Today, our guest is one of the biggest advocates and examples of impact investing in Estonia. She helped to build Skype (https://skype.com) and was the second employee at Wise (https://wise.com). Her active angel portfolio includes companies such as Starship, Montonio, Salv and many others. Lately, she co-founded Grünfin (https://grunfin.com), a company that helps people invest in the most impactful sustainable funds. She is one of the pioneers when it comes to women in tech herself, now becomin...
Jan 20, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Today, our guest is one of the biggest standout names within the Estonian tech scene. Among other things, he has been a General Manager at Skype, worked at Andreessen and Horowitz ( https://a16z.com ), Advised the president of Estonia on tech and innovation matters, and has made over 100 investments with his business partner - Taavet Hindrikus, over the past two years. Recently, Taavet and himself founded Plural ( https://pluralplatform.com ) - an investment platform for unemployables. In additi...
Dec 13, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Today, our guest is an exciting mix of a founder and an angel investor. His startup Katana MRP ( https://katanamrp.com ) has just closed a 35m€ funding round, while his investment portfolio contains the likes of Bolt, Eurora, Outvio, Fooddocs, and many others. Interestingly, he started his investors career for a not-so-common reason but has created a more structured approach since then. It is notable how one person can manage so many things at the same time, also being a father and a partner in ...
Nov 10, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Today, our guest is relatively young but already a successful investor. He is a Partner at Superangel VC (superangel.io), an angel investor, and an active player within the investment circles in Estonia and Baltics at large. His personal portfolio includes companies such as Planet42, Ampler Bikes, Bikeep, Snabb, and many others. Apart from investing, he also promotes the industry by being one of the founders of the region's largest retail investment event - the Investment Festival. Furthermore, ...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 1
fff.vc founder Akim and Deal flow manager Tim are running a series of investment-related podcasts: FFF - Story Short, where FFF shares, addresses, and discusses the latest startup/investment news from the Baltics and the Nordics. You can expect fff.vc's community update and introduction of the "Collectives" initiative for which Helery Pops join us. We will address the trend of secondaries, discuss the future of revenue-based financing and look at Norrsken Impact Report 2021.
Jul 23, 2022•55 min
FFF.vc founder Akim and Deal flow manager Tim are running a series of investment-related podcasts: FFF - Story Short, where FFF shares, addresses, and discusses the latest startup/investment news from the Baltics and the Nordics. You can expect FFF.vc's community update and an overview of the investment trends in April. We will address the "bootstrap or raise" dilemma and dive into VC economics and its correlations with investors.
May 29, 2022•41 min
FFF.vc founder Akim and Deal flow manager Tim are running a series of investment-related podcasts: FFF - Story Short, where FFF shares, addresses, and discusses the latest startup/investment news from the Baltics and the Nordics. You can expect news and discussions about Metaverse, the Swedish-Estonian connection, in this episode. At the same time, Akim and Tim will discuss where is a borderline of a lie when pitching to investors.
Apr 18, 2022•47 min
FFF.vc founder Akim and Deal flow manager Tim are running a series of investment-related podcasts: FFF - Story Short, where FFF shares, addresses, and discusses the latest startup/investment news from the Baltics and the Nordics. FFF also uses this opportunity to keep its audience up to date on what is happening behind the curtains of the Fund Fellow Founders community and to shed light on FFF's latest investments.
Mar 15, 2022•59 min
