Baltic startups raised €607 million in 2025, with Estonia taking almost half
According to a report by FIRSTPICK and Practica Capital, venture funding in the Baltics grew by a fifth in a year. Estonian companies raised €293 million, but Lithuania and Latvia grew faster than Estonia.
All years as a table
| Year | Revenue | Profit | Employees |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 8 538 552 € | 414 946 € | 71 |
| 2024 | 6 377 191 € | −73 764 € | 50 |
| 2023 | 4 868 154 € | 128 270 € | 40 |
| 2022 | 3 711 398 € | 227 892 € | 31 |
| 2021 | 1 858 136 € | −296 474 € | 15 |
| 2020 | 259 781 € | −642 181 € | 10 |
Baltic startups raised a total of €607 million in venture capital in 2025, up from €505 million a year earlier. The result comes from the annual startup funding report by the Baltic funds FIRSTPICK and Practica Capital, based on public data and information provided by founders and investors. The report identified 175 funding rounds in the region during the year, for 109 of which it obtained detailed data, or 62 percent.
Despite the growth, capital volumes are far from the peak. In 2021 the Baltics raised €1.6 billion and in 2022 €1.8 billion; in 2023 the sum fell to €734 million and in 2024 to €505 million. This year's €607 million is therefore about a third of the peak. The number of rounds stayed almost flat: 153 in 2025 (2024: 145), against a record of 203 in 2021. Money is thus flowing into fewer, larger rounds.
By country, Lithuanian startups raised €238 million, Latvian €76 million and Estonian €293 million, so Estonia took almost half of the region's money. Although Estonia is still the largest, the picture changed during the year: calculated from the report's slides, Lithuania's capital raised grew by 116 percent in 2025 and Latvia's by as much as 3.7 times, while Estonia's fell by 19 percent (from €360 million to €293 million).
Over a longer period, Estonia's dominance is still clear. Calculated from the slides, Estonian startups raised about €3.9 billion in total in 2019–2025, Lithuanian €1.8 billion and Latvian €0.5 billion, meaning Estonia's share is about 63 percent, Lithuania's 28 and Latvia's 9. Estonia's peak came in 2022 at almost €1.3 billion, most of it Series A and later rounds.
The differences by stage are interesting. In pre-seed, Estonia (€21.2 million) and Lithuania (€19.9 million) were almost equal, each with 34 rounds, while Latvia had 13 rounds and €5.8 million. At seed level, Estonia raised €58.2 million in 20 rounds, Lithuania a record €56.5 million in as many as 28 rounds and Latvia €16.9 million in seven. The average seed round was €2.91 million in Estonia, €2.41 million in Latvia and €2.02 million in Lithuania. In Series A and later, Estonia raised €213.6 million in 11 rounds, Lithuania €161.6 million in five (including Cast AI's €98 million round) and Latvia €53.3 million in a single deal. According to the report, 73 percent of Baltic Series A rounds were done in Estonia.
Over the last three years Estonia's story has been one of large rounds. Seed funding has been steady for six years at €58–72 million a year, but the number of rounds has shrunk from 36 in 2021 to 20, so the average round has grown. Pre-seed funding doubled from €10.5 million to €21.2 million and the number of rounds rose from 20 to 34. There were 11 Series A and later rounds (2024: 16), but the average round was €19.4 million (2024: €18.2 million). Pactum, Blackwall and Starship stood out with the biggest deals.
By vertical, the clear winner of 2025 was artificial intelligence, which raised €216 million, against €33 million last year and only €8 million in 2023. AI companies were funded 26 times, more than any other field. Hardware and robotics got €99 million (2024: €153 million), cloud €45 million and fintech €42 million, with fintech down by half from €90 million in two years. Energy raised €32 million after its 2023 peak of €274 million, but had 14 fundings, the most after AI. Defence received €22 million (2024: €9 million) and health €17 million. In Estonia capital tilted towards defence, energy and hardware-adjacent software; Frankenburg, Wayren and LendurAI are named as examples.
On the investor side the region became more international. At least one foreign investor took part in 43 percent of deals, up from 20 percent in 2020. Baltic-focused venture managers also raised nine new funds in 2025 worth about €300 million in total. Lithuanian funds raised €65 million, Latvian €60 million and Estonian €55 million, and international funds active in the Baltics another €120 million.
There were 25 exits, mostly acquisitions, in 2025, against 14 last year and 11 in 2023. Lithuania added the most (11, against 2 in 2024), but Estonia, with 13 exits, still came first. Since 2019 the report counts 92 exits in the Baltics in total: 49 in Estonia, 28 in Lithuania and 15 in Latvia.
For the first time the report also examined the profile of funded founders. Half have founded a company before, 78 percent are building in the same field they previously worked in, and 77 percent have prior team-lead experience. About 76 percent of funded companies have at least two founders and 77 percent at least one technical founder. The field remains heavily male, though: nearly 90 percent of founders are men and only 23 percent of funded companies have at least one woman co-founder.
According to the business register, the figures of the Estonian companies named in the report show how different their stages are. Pactum AI OÜ's revenue grew to €8.5 million in 2025 and it earned a profit of €415,000, with 71 employees. Starship Technologies OÜ had revenue of €22.2 million and 193 employees. Defence-tech company Frankenburg Technologies OÜ had revenue of €1.3 million and a loss of €3.6 million, but its headcount grew from seven to 29. Wayren OÜ had revenue of €83,000, a loss of €601,000 and 12 employees. These are the figures of the Estonian entities, not of the groups.