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 👉 Subscribe to ZapytajVC for more insights from CEE VC markets! 🇵🇱Did you like it? Buy us a coffee! Join our Discord community 🎵 Music from https://www.zapsplat.com