More capital available for Baltic founders and a growing team at Change Ventures
We are delighted to announce another increase in the size of Change Ventures Fund II, to almost €43M in commitments, meaning more capital for more ambitious Baltic founders to scale their businesses across the globe. This fund growth comes at the right time as startups are experiencing an unprecedented renaissance across the globe, with the Baltic states looking more and more like the “next startup nations”, emulating Israel’s disproportionate success relative to the size of the local population.
Change Ventures fund is growing with the market, thanks to new commitments to the fund that see the opportunity in this amazing region. This closing of the fund sees several new limited partner investors joining, most importantly the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development). In addition, we have several experienced and well-connected players in the global and Baltic technology ecosystem who have joined as LPs, including Tim Draper, Mantas Mikuckas (COO of Vinted and co-investor in several startups with us) and the co-Managing Directors of Storm Ventures, Tae Hea Nahm and Ryan Floyd, who co-led the Series A round for Interactio, the world’s leading remote interpretation platform company from Lithuania. The fund will complete the final closing at the end of this year, establishing our leadership in the region as the largest pan-Baltic seed fund. For founders, this means we will be able to fund companies through more funding rounds after our initial investment.
Along with a larger fund, we are growing our team. This year we have been joined by Gabrielė Poteliūnaitė, Associate based in Lithuania, and Aveli Nurk, Finance Manager in Estonia. During the next six months we want to bring on board more talent and, alongside actively searching via our network, we wish to announce these opportunities publicly to ensure we see candidate who we might not think of approaching.
We will bring on board one or more partner-track candidates, starting as either a Partner or a Principal, depending on the experience that the successful candidate brings to the fund. Since we intend to maintain our core focus on the Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian startup communities, we want someone who will easily be able to establish a strong position in those ecosystems, whether by virtue of their current role and network or the value they might bring from prior experience and networks built elsewhere in the world. We already brought one diaspora representative back to the region, Gabrielė, and would love to bring more. The advantage in selection will go to Lithuanians, given that we don’t yet have a partner from the country, but candidates with connections to all three states will be considered. The detailed job description can be found on LinkedIn, but we welcome applicants who don’t necessarily have a venture capital background. However, at least some angel investment experience would be a distinct advantage to join at the partner level.
Secondly, we wish to add to the team at the Associate or Analyst level, especially in Estonia, our most active market where we have the largest deal flow and portfolio. In true startup fashion, our partner Rait and Yrjö have been scouting, evaluating, negotiating, closing and managing all the investments in Estonia themselves, but it is time to add firepower to the team. We seek someone who is excited about a career in the venture capital industry and about startups. Someone who is passionate about supporting founders in their unbelievably challenging journey to success and who has the skills and experience to support the partners in finding the best founders from the region and winning the right to back them in their journey, then supporting founders post-investment. More details in the LinkedIn job description here — please apply or share with those you think might be a good fit for us.
The “next startup nations” are on their way to massive success and Change Ventures wants to take a leading role in supporting the most ambitious and talented Baltic founders. Come join us!
