Startup Wise Guys expand to Lithuania
After running programs in Estonia and Latvia, we are happy to announce that as of spring 2019 we will also be running acceleration programs in Lithuania, thus operating in all three Baltic countries and helping founders from the whole CEE region grow into successful global entrepreneurs.
We have just been announced as one of the two winners of the public tender ran by Lithuanian financial institution INVEGA (Investment and Business Guarantees). The total fund of above 7 million euros (out of which 6.7 million euros will be financed from Accelerator Fund, funded by the European Regional Development Fund) will be allocated to run 4 accelerator programs and do follow-up seed investments in the early stage startups.
Upcoming programs will be targeted at startups from Lithuania & CIS countries, and focused on particular sectors such as ICT, DeepTech, Fintech, CyberTech and Blockchain. The first program is planned to be launched by April 2019.
We see need both in more specialised programs (focused on particular vertical), but also in follow-up investments to help startups from this region survive the “startup death valley”.
Far too often we have seen very promising startups from CIS and CEE countries that disappear before they have really tested themselves in big markets, and all of that is simply due to lack of early stage investment power in the region.
Startups will receive an initial investment of 30K eur, with an opportunity to get additional follow-up investments of up to 225K eur, and they will take part at 3 month on-site hands-on acceleration program that has success rate above 77%.
Just a reminder that up to now we have run 11 accelerator programs, including a Fintech focused program in collaboration with Swedbank, and have invested in more than 100 early stage startups.
Financial instrument Accelerator Fund, funded by the European Regional Development Fund, is a part of Business Financing Fund, the fund-of-funds managed by INVEGA and funded by the European Regional Development Fund with the objective of contributing support from the Operational Programme for the EU Funds’ Investments in 2014–2020 to several financial instruments.
