E648 | This Week in European Tech: The Baltics, Bureaucracy & Building Boldly
Description
Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed, Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures, and this week’s guest Jone Vaituleviciute, Managing Partner at Firstpick VC, unpack the forces shaping venture across Europe and the Baltics.
This week’s conversation bridges Lithuania’s booming early-stage scene and Europe’s macro tensions — from defense investments and bootstrapping culture to Matt Clifford’s call for “permissionless growth,” the rise of quant capital, and how Europe’s AI reality is evolving fast.
🎧 Here’s what’s covered
00:31 From Startup Wise Guys to Firstpick: why Jone spun out to back Baltic founders even earlier.
04:22 “It will never get cheaper than pre-seed”: on starting at the first line of code.
05:47 The Baltic edge: distribution over product perfection and why bootstrapping still wins.
11:22 €300 M defense deal: Rheinmetall’s Lithuanian factory and why incentives trump fear.
16:23 Matt Clifford’s speech: 17 years of UK stagnation and a call for permissionless growth.
25:04 The politics of productivity — shock therapy vs. bureaucracy fatigue.
33:18 Quant trading boom: XTX’s 25 k GPUs vs. Germany’s 10 k, and where talent flows.
40:19 AI corner: Calm model, Nebius cloud, and Europe’s token factory moment.
52:36 Circular financing or just capital cycles? The debate behind AI mega deals.
55:45 Deals of the week: Nexus AI’s $8 M raise and Poolside’s $2 B round.
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