Ep 203: Tech Brief
Wise Founders Outrank Ed Sheeran on UK Rich List, €100K Salaries in Lithuania’s Startups, Crypto Founders Getting Kidnapped, Slack and ChatGPT Can Be Used Against You in Court & Klarna Rehires Humans in AI Reality Check
Welcome to the Pursuit of Scrappiness Tech Brief. A monthly discussion on topics we find relevant to highlight, discuss and share with you to help you become a scrappier and better version of yourself.
On this episode we talk about:
🇱🇹🇱🇻🇪🇪 BALTICS
• Wise founders on UK Rich List – Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus rank among UK’s wealthiest.
• Lithuanian startup salaries – Average tech salary at €4.6k/month, possibly more favorable than Berlin after tax and cost-of-living adjustments.
• Vinted launches VC arm – Vinted Ventures to invest €0.5–10M in re-commerce startups.
• Trafi exit – Lithuanian mobility startup acquired by Enghouse Systems.
• Latvian co-founder at Austria’s Emmi AI – Raised €15M, Austria’s largest-ever seed round.
• Glasses finally disrupted? – Finnish startup IXI raises €36.5M to reinvent vision tech.
• Bolt sounds alarm over Lyft buying Free Now – Bolt sees itself as the last European alternative in mobility.
• XData Group SPAC deal – Estonian B2B tech company to go public in the US via a $180M SPAC.
🇪🇺 EUROPE
• VC/angel activity booming in CEE – Investment up 28%; Startup Wise Guys and Mikko Silventola among top performers.
• Slush Startup Struggles survey – Top founder struggles: fundraising, revenue growth, and team building.
• AIN Capital’s report – 26,000 active startups in CEE worth €213B; Poland leads in unicorns and enterprise value.
• Klarna delays IPO – Valuation rebound to $15B, but postpones IPO due to Trump tariffs and market volatility.
• AI reversal at Klarna – After replacing 700 staff, now rehiring humans due to poor AI service quality.
• Crypto founder kidnappings in France – 3 shocking abduction cases in 2025, spotlighting the need for founder security.
• DoorDash buys Deliveroo for £2.4B – Expands European dominance; previously acquired Wolt for $8.1B.
• Salesforce acquires Convergence in <12 months – From seed round to acquisition in record speed.
• Optics11 raises €17M – Dutch startup building fiber-optic infrastructure to defend Europe’s subsea cables.
• Belarus jails Imaguru founders – Sentenced to 11 and 12 years for startup support and protest involvement.
🇺🇸 USA & GLOBAL
• AI education mandate in schools – Trump signs executive order for mandatory AI curriculum (K–12) starting 2025–2026.
• OpenAI drama continues – Stays nonprofit but restructures as a public benefit corp; judge orders full retention of user logs.
• Slack turns snitch in corporate spying case – Rippling traps a Deel spy via fake Slack channel; used in court.
• Apple forced to allow external payments – Major US court ruling challenges 30% App Store commission model.
• Microsoft layoffs & Skype shutdown – 3% workforce cut; focus shifts fully to AI development.
• Nissan closes 7 factories – 20,000 layoffs amid EV transition and global tariff uncertainty.
• VCs immune to AI? – Marc Andreessen claims VCs are irreplaceable in a bold podcast statement.
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