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Image credits: Change Ventures

Change Ventures, a Tallinn-based VC firm, announced that it has closed its Change Ventures Fund II for startups in the Baltic States at €49M. According to Change Ventures, it is the largest seed venture capital fund ever raised in the Baltic States. 

Investors

The main investor in Change Ventures Fund II is the European Investment Fund. Other institutional investors include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), CBL Asset Management pension fund from Latvia, and fund managers  Aldea Ventures, Molten Ventures, Multiple Capital, and EVLI Growth Partners. 

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Additionally, experienced founders and angel investors from the region, including Mantas Mikuckas (COO, Vinted), James Berdigans (CEO, Printify), Andrius Šlimas (CEO of Oberlo, acquired by Shopify), Tadas Langaitis (co-founder, KiloHealth), Martin Sokk (CEO, Lightyear), Taavi Tamkivi (CEO, Salv), Audrius Zujus (CTO, Argyle), Ģirts Graudiņš (Director Engineering, Twilio), Moaffak Ahmed (angel investor and founder of Cooler Future), Rita Sakus (angel investor) and Aļoša Jenko (CEO, Httpool), also participated.

Further, experienced VC fund managers, including Silicon Valley’s Tim Draper, Storm Ventures GPs Tae Hea Nahm and Ryan Floyd, Spectrum Equity’s Victor Parker, and Guzel Gumerova, former GP of Speedinvest’s FinTech fund, also joined the round. 

New appointments

In addition to the funding, Change Ventures appointed Kärt Siilats as a partner. She has 7+ years of experience as a partner at Mojo.capital, a fund that backed unicorns such as Tink, iZettle, Wise, and Auto1. 

Prior to Mojo, Kärt spent 15 years in financial services spanning the European Investment Fund, Citi, and Barclays. She is a graduate of INSEAD and Harvard University, and an accomplished athlete.

Kärt Rääbis also joined as Associate & Community Manager, who worked as Lift99’s community manager in Tallinn and, prior to joining Change Ventures, managed the BuildIT Green pilot accelerator and fund for ClimateTech hardware startups. She will manage community relations and support the investment team with pre and post-investment research.

Gabrielė Poteliūnaitė, lead for Lithuanian investments, has been promoted to Senior Associate. 

Change Ventures: What you need to know

Based out of Tallinn, Change Ventures is the first pre-seed/seed venture capital fund with boots on the ground in all three Baltic states. 

The VC firm backs ambitious founders based in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as Baltic diaspora entrepreneurs building their businesses elsewhere in the world. 

Currently, the company’s portfolio spans the following major sectors in the region – FinTech/RegTech, E-commerce and retail, B2B, Consumer and EdTech and a range of DeepTech/AI startups across the globe. 

“Our Fund II portfolio has 43% mixed-gender teams already and we expect this to reach 50% shortly,” mentions Change Venture in its blog. 

Baltic Startup Funding Report

Change Venture also published the ‘Baltic Startup Funding Report.’ .

• According to the report, Baltic startups raised €1.6B capital in 2021, triple the amount raised in 2020. 
• In terms of startups per capita, Estonia is already far ahead of Europe and Israel, and the Baltic states together are almost at parity with Europe’s best – both in terms of startups and unicorns per capita, says the report. 
• During H1 2021, investors funded startups with less revenue, but the second half of the year saw a return to the norm with pre-seed startups earning a median of €5,500 per month at the time of funding, while seed startups earned €30,000.
• During H2 2021, total capital raised by Baltic startups reached almost €1B. The report says that Series A rounds have doubled compared to the prior half-year. The number of seed rounds grew, while the number of pre-seed rounds dropped. To check out the full report, click here