Baltic Startup Survey 2024 

Goals and methodology of the survey

The BalticVC team studied the startup ecosystem in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for its Baltic Startup Survey. We sent questionnaires to startup founders from these countries.

The main goals of the Baltic Startup Survey are to describe the current state and development trend of the startup ecosystem in the Baltic countries, to identify the pros and cons of local innovative companies, and to review the following areas such as team and business development, sales, and fundraising. The main study objectives are startups and founders, their socio-demographic parameters, professional and entrepreneurial experience.

Another important goal of the Survey is to show the investment attractiveness of the Baltic region for investors from around the world.

We asked more than 280 founders to fill out questionnaires, and 107 of them agreed to participate in a 23-question survey. We did not range the results by country if they fit the overall Baltic results.

Baltic startup founder’s profile

• 39 y.o.
• university degree
• entrepreneur with experience of managing his own business

Despite the stereotype that young people and yesterday’s alumni are launching startups, Baltic founders start their companies at a more mature age. The average age of a Baltic startup founder is 39 years (in Estonia - 39, in Latvia - 37, in Lithuania - 40).

Almost all startup founders (around 90%) have a university graduate. 11% have a PhD, which is reasonable given the age of the founders. These data show that entrepreneurs spend years in education before starting their business.

The founders of Baltic startups are mostly serial entrepreneurs, having experience in business. Before establishing their current company, 48% of respondents had already been engaged in their own business. 34% are employees, who were occupied in a corporation before launching their startup. Fewer people were employed in small companies - 27%.

Looking at the results by country, only 19% of Lithuanian startup founders previously ran their own business. Lithuanian founders are mainly former employees of large enterprises (33%).

In Estonia, on the other hand, only 16% of founders are former employees of large enterprises. Those who worked in SMEs and serial entrepreneurs account for 22% and 33% respectively.

Startup profile

• Founded 4 years ago or less
• Team of 2-5 employees
• At the pre-seed stage

The average age of a Baltic startup is 1-4 years. Only 36% of the participating companies are 5 years old or more.

The average Baltic startup team is mostly small – 2-5 people (46%). Only 5% of the companies have large teams of 31 or more employees. 

Almost half of startups are in the pre-seed stage (46%), 26% of companies are in the seed stage, and 17% - in the early growth stage.

To classify the startups, we asked the founders to name the industry in which they work. Most startups in the region work in the fintech sector, followed by medicine and health, with EdTech startups coming in third place. 

The majority of technology companies are developing a B2B product (82%), and 29% are developing a product for end users (multiple answers were possible). 12% of startups are working for the government.

Startup industry scene

More than half of Baltic tech entrepreneurs (54%) say that their business has improved over the past year. 28% of respondents said that the situation in the industry had not changed, while 18% of founders felt that it had worsened. At the same time, 39% of respondents said that their company was close to shutting down in 2023.

Ranging the responses by countries, 61% of Estonian startups felt that the market situation had improved, 29% did not notice any change, and 10% felt that the market conditions had worsened. At the same time, 35% of Estonian startups admitted that they closed to shutting down in 2023.