Around 30 VC’s and investors from all over the world had a blast in Vilnius last May at LOGIN Startup Fair. 247 B2B meetings of startups and investors were organized during the two-day event. 65 startups from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia had a chance to showcase their companies at this startup fiesta, which is the biggest annual startup event in the Baltics.

Below you can find impressions and comments from the guests of LOGIN Startup Fair.

Marcin Hejka (Intel Capital):

We’ve invested in 60-70 companies in Eastern and Central Europe, including Yandex, Wind Mobile and CGTrader, great Lithuanian company, which is growing very nicely, we are hoping to invest in more companies in Lithuania.

I’ve been observing Lithuanian market for a number of years and there has been a tremendous progress. There was little happening four years ago and we saw very few opportunities coming from Lithuania then. Suddenly something changed roughly two years ago. Since then we have seen a very good pipeline, very good companies in terms of quantity and quality.

Lithuania have improved more or event most than any other country in Central or Eastern Europe and have put itself very solidly on the map of important technological ecosystems in the region.

There is a lot of talent here both in terms of technological, engineering and software skills as well as in terms of entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurship spirit. These characteristics are typical for the whole region, but they become very visible in Lithuania in the last couple of years.

I wish Lithuania to produce unicorns – a couple of billion dollar exits. It would create a tremendous push. Nothing motivates the ecosystem to work even harder more than success stories.

Yanki Margalit (social entrepreneur, investor and builder of 1^st Israeli spacecraft on the Moon):

This is an amazing combination of people and technology in Lithuania and I feel like at home here! It’s not only about innovation or startups, you feel very strong energy of people here.

Lithuanian founders do not look too high on themselves, they are very straight forward, realistic, working hard, willing to succeed. Less marketing and more content – this is the feeling about Lithuanians, which I get while being here. My advice to them– to have more marketing!

Linus Dahg (Wellington Partners):

How friendly everyone is here! I think that Lithuania deserves more attention from international people.

We started looking to Lithuanian startups few years ago because more mature companies have been popping up and proving traction.

Lithuanian startup ecosystem could be described in these five words: technical, perseverance, networkers, community, underserved.

We are looking for those who are more focused on what the future will look like in 2 or 4 years rather than finding market opportunities that exist right now. About 70 percent of our investments are into B2B oriented companies, so we are trying to find infrastructure places, platforms, technology enablers, e-commerce solutions, sharing economy, marketplaces.

Sam Mayers (Balderton Capital):

Lithuanian founders can be described in these 3 words: humble, thoughtful and far more technical than founders, that we have seen in other regions.

Lithuania is a country with very good engineers. Now you need creativity, initiative and courage for the next step – for the startups to grow internationally and scale on the global level.

It’s my second time in Lithuania and I met far more mature companies this time here and I see that international investors are paying more attention to Lithuanian startup ecosystem.

LOGIN Startup Fair is the biggest annual event for startups in the Baltics, organized by Enterprise Lithuania and Startup Lithuania. The event gathers together entrepreneurs, designers, programmers, investors and media from the whole region. Good news regarding funds raised by startups from foreign investors pop up after every event! LOGIN Startup Fair is the part of LOGIN, biggest annual progress conference in the Baltics, which will rock for the tenth time in May 2016.