Roadtrip: Litwa | Tomas Kemtys, Contrarian Ventures

🚀 ZapytajVC presents the latest episode of the "Roadtrip" series, this time visiting 🇱🇹 Lithuania! Our guest is Tomas Kemtys (General Partner at Contrarian Ventures, ex-Centerview Partners), who discusses:

• 🔍 the explosive growth of the Lithuanian startup ecosystem – from emerging market to European powerhouse in just 5-6 years
• 🦄 Lithuanian unicorns (Vinted, Nord Security/NordVPN) and their unique paths to success – one VC-backed, one bootstrapped to $1.5B+ valuatio
• 💰 the role of public funding (Invega, EIF) in kickstarting the Baltic VC ecosystem and the transition to private capita
• 🌍 why Lithuania's 2.5M population drives global ambition from day one – no domestic market comfort zon
• 📈 Lithuania's fastest-growing startup ecosystem in CEE (6.8x growth in 5 years) while Estonia leads in unicorns per capita
• 🤝 how Polish VCs (Inovo, Market One Capital, Movens) are winning deals in Lithuania and competing with top Western European funds
• ⚡ Contrarian Ventures' climate-tech focus and why seed-stage climate founders are building the infrastructure of tomorrow
• 🇵🇱 the "Poland problem" – why 40M people can be both blessing and curse for startup ambition
• 💚 NEW: Contrarian's first Polish investment – sun.store (€6M seed round, €100M GMV marketplace for solar equipment)

Key ecosystem players mentioned: Practica Capital, firstpick, ScaleWolf, Tesonet Group, Kilo Health, PVcase, Index Ventures, Accel, Warburg Pincus

💼 Tomas' LinkedIn profile
🌐 Contrarian Ventures
☀️ sun.store

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