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Venture Capital (VC) firms provide capital to startups with long-term growth potential. In Latvia, venture capital funding is provided by institutional investors with substantial support from the Latvian government. However, as the sector has matured so has the country’s venture capital ecosystem.
In recent years, angels and venture capital firms have increasingly become a source of funding for startups and scale ups in Latvia.
This article was last updated on 22 October 2022. If I'm missing a venture capital fund, please let me know and I'll add it.
Be sure to check out Venture Capital Careers for VC jobs.
Altum is a state-owned development finance organization that plays a pivotal role in the creation of the Latvian venture ecosystem. They invests in companies by committing capital to venture capital funds that invest in companies and also invests and manages its own venture fund.
BADideas.fund is an angel investor syndicate that invests €50-€100K in post-MVP startups in CEE and like to invest 5-10x that amount in follow on rounds. The syndicate is ran and backed mostly by founders and operators, who’ve gone through top accelerators like Y-Combinator and 500Startups, built startups from inception to exit, including unicorns and centaurs, and others who’ve scaled from $0 to $50M+ ARR.
Their approach is two-fold:
Be transparent up front what kind of help we can deliver
Rethink how we create structure and incentivize our member founders & operators to invest their time in your startup not just for a virtual coffee, but on consistent and regular basis.
They’re comfortable being the first money in the round and can help founders find their PMF faster, build scalable growth engines, and fundraise from the best investors. Their focus is mostly B2B SaaS and marketplaces as that’s where their members specialize.
BaltCap focuses on building businesses that increases the quality of life in our societies, and are the largest private equity fund manager in the Baltic states. They are the only multi-strategy fund manager in the Baltics covering buyout, growth, venture, and infrastructure investments.
To date, they've invested in over 100 companies across a wide range of industry sectors and raised aggregate capital of over €650 million.
However, as long as the technology is innovative or deemed of high value to society. we do not limit ourselves to these segments.
Buildit is a Latvian accelerator that helps hardware and IoT startups become investable. The best performing teams also receive pre-seed investment in cash starting from €10-50k. They’re also happy to lead or join the seed round with an investment up to €250k.
The program is specially tailored to support hardware and IoT startups by providing
Mentoring from experienced industry specialists
Office hours with investors & successful hardware builders
Support with the soft stuff: legal, fundraising design thinking, strategy
Visits to manufacturing sites
Capitalia is the leading financer for small and medium enterprises in the Baltic sea region. Since 2007, they’ve financed more than 5000 businesses and invested more than €100 million.
Capitalia’s venture capital operation typically invests based on these terms:
Financing amount: €100-500k
Term: Three to five years
Shares in the company: Typically from 10-49%
Repayment of financing: Sale of the business together with the founders
Documents for evaluation: Depending on each specific case
Capitalia has made investments in Aerones, Giraffe360, Inzmo, Indexo, Cenos, and Edurio.
Change Ventures is the first pan-Baltic seed fund. They invest €400k-2M in teams building global scale businesses at the pre-seed and seed stages, along with follow-on capital in later rounds.
Commercialization Reactor is an accelerator for science and deep tech commerciaization. Their mission is to bring meaningful startups to the market by providing opportunity to scientists, startup founders, investors, and corporations.
Their Commercialization Reactor Fund invests up to 50,000 EUR per startup during the acceleration program (pre-seed investment) which can be supplemented with a follow-up seed round of up to 250,000 EUR after acceleration stage. Seed stage investment is only possible if your start-up has gone through the acceleration program and received the pre-seed investment from their fund.
Expanse Capital is a startup accelerator with headquarters in Riga, Latvia. It is self-described as a 3-in-1: seed fund, accelerator, and startup studio with their business model focusing on increasing the value of their portfolio companies.
FlyCap is a growth capital fund that has been operating since 2013 with €36m under management. Their preferred sectors are: healthcare, B2B, IT & tech, and export-oriented manufacturing.
Imprimatur Capital invests in global startups from the Baltic Sea Region. They invest in ambitious founders at pre-series A with some initial revenue and a verified business model ready to scale globally.
Their focus areas are B2B software & data, digital health & lifestyle, learning & training, and robotics & automation. They look for:
Team: Ambitious experienced founders + product, sales, and marketing
Scale: Scalable business model with global growth potential
Revenue: Existing revenue with at least €5,000 MRR
Ticket size: They invest from €200k to ~€2m per company
Geography: Global market potential but originating in the Baltic sea region
LatBAN exists to help business angels make great investments across the Baltics. To make this happen, they:
Help become smart Business Angels by offering specific training, advice and co-investment opportunities to reduce risks
Help increase the potential for ROI by carefully sourcing and selecting startups, mentoring startups, raising the qualification of Business Angels, establishing cooperation at the Latvian and foreign level and creating joint investment opportunities
Participate in the growth of the innovation ecosystem in Latvia for future investment opportunities - by providing expertise to policy makers, start-ups and innovators
Since it was founded in April, 2014, LatBAN has grown to more than 44 members who have invested more than €15.6m in 200+ start-up projects.
Livonia Partners invest in successful companies in the Baltic region and beyond that show an enterprising spirit and strong growth potential. It was founded in 2015 with a simple goal – to become the best private equity investor in the Baltic region.
They currently invest from their €157 million Fund II and look out for Baltic businesses that show strong growth potential and invest up to €25 million per company. They acquire shares from owners that wish to sell, and also invest growth equity.
Overkill Ventures is a Nordic-based angel fund that takes startups from pre-traction to product-market fit. They provide B2B tech startups in CEE & Nordics with up to €220K in pre-seed funding and tailored coaching to get to product-market fit.
ZGI Capital is one of the most experienced venture capital firms in the Baltics that started its operations in 2005. ZGI Capital has won VC & PE sector awards for four consecutive years: in 2014., 2015., 2016, and 2017.
They want to invest between €0.5-5 million in companies with proven business models and firmly established home markets which are now entering new export markets, increasing capacity, developing new business directions, improving profitability, or automating manufacturing.
iTech Capital is a private equity and venture capital investment manager that has been investing since 2010. Their portfolio companies are operating in over 15 countries worldwide and serving more than 50 million customers.
They invest globally in tech companies at the Series A stage and beyond. Along with capital, they provide a broad range of professional expertise to our chosen companies to accelerate growth and consolidate their first-mover advantage.
rubylight is a technology investment company that was founded by experienced entrepreneurs in 2010. Their passion is to help fast-growing internet and mobile startups scale and expand globally. They do this by providing startups with a professional tech team, proprietary technology, and financial funding.
They do not have investment committees and do not require long business plans. They make decisions and invest very fast. However, they only invest in businesses that they can understand and where they can add value which tends to be in consumer-oriented internet and mobile companies, as well as communication, content sharing, social media, and crowd sourcing.