Why CIS startups should consider Lithuania

I recently wrote a column for Zukerman-Pozvonit, the most popular media in CIS about startups. It's called "Основатель TrackDuck: Почему я позвал Павла Дурова в Литву" and talks about why CIS startups should move to Lithuania. Below is a rough English version of it, please take a look and comment!

Hi, my name is Edmundas Balcikonis, I'm CEO of TrackDuck startup. Together with a team from Lithuania and Belarus we are building a visual feedback tool for web development and design.

A few months ago Lithuanian startup scene made the news by inviting Pavel Durov with his team to move and develop their new venture in Vilnius. We managed to make "Pavel, come to Lithuania!" quite public. Lithuanian and foreign media covered it extensively, a number of Lithuanian politicians and government agencies expressed their support for the initiative. Pavel did reply to several separate invitations and promised to visit Lithuania. Probably the most fun was when the President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė tweeted "Pavel Durov @durov, the founder of #RU largest social network, has no place in his country, but the door is open for him in #Europe and #LT" and Pavel replied with "@Grybauskaite_LT Thank you very much, this means a lot to us." a few hours later.

Gedimino avenue in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania

Recently, Lithuania has been increasingly mentioned as a possible destination for Russian startups to move for a better business environment. However, it is not only Russian startups choosing to move to Lithuania. I personally know couple of Italian startups, a French startuper, Belarusians and Ukrainians, a few Americans, a guy from Togo etc. All of them have chosen to build their startups in Lithuania. Motives to choose LT range from low prices to having a better stepping point to EU market entry or a romantic relationship :) Other benefits include taxes which are below EU average (read more here). Bureaucracy is also smaller compared to many other countries (LT is 17th in Doing Business). Banking infrastructure is well developed and we also have a decent e-signature system. While being abroad, I've opened a limited liability company for our startup TrackDuck using a mobile phone and laptop. Finally, Lithuania also has a vibrant and growing startup / IT industry, with such prominent startups as Vinted (recently raised $27M B round from Accel Partners and Insight Venture Partners), a range of cool startup events and so on. Without doubt Vilnius is the best place for startups in Lithuania, it has the biggest and most active startup scene in LT. Cost of living is not high, but with very good standard of living. For example, for around $700 a month you can already rent a nice 2 room apartment in Vilnius old town. Also, all services that a startup may need are available, plenty of options for renting an office. To top it - a cozy Vilnius airport, which takes usually less than half an hour to get through.

Among Russian companies which recently have moved to Lithuania ones are Game Insight, Charlie Oscar, Planner 5D, 4talk IM.
- Game Insight recently moved their HQ to Vilnius from Moscow. This was mentioned all major LT newspapers and international media.

- Sergei Klimov from Charlie Oscar has written a lovely post in Russian why he moved the company to Vilnius
- From interview Planner 5D: "The climate in Lithuania is very good and the country is near to Russia. It is comfortable living here."

So if you are a Russian startuper interested in Lithuania and looking for advice / partners / investors:

1. Get in touch with Invest Lithuania and check out Startup Highway accelerator (they are helping Planner 5D with EU market entry). If you're a game developer, get in touch with Oleg, who works at Unity 3D. He knows everything about LT #gamedev scene.
2. For seed round talk with Practical Capital and Nextury Ventures. And for larger fundraising amounts contact BaltCap and LitCapital.
3. Go to meetups and events, people are genuinely friendly in LT startup community. Maybe a little shy sometimes :) For starters check outOpenCoffe Club Vilnius
4. Start to talk, pitch, make deals, send emails etc in English. Majority under 30 folks in LT have no Russian language skills.
5. Be aware that not many people follow Russian startup scene, nor general news for that matter. Mostly because of language barrier and/or focus on EU or US. Because of this understanding of the world and definitions may be different :)

Have a question or comment about Lithuanian or our startup scene? Leave it in the comments, I will be checking and replying daily (also in Russian!) :)