There currently are at least 316 start-ups operating in Lithuania, a 15,8% increase from the past year, the website Startup Lithuania announces. They paid a total of 7,49M EUR employee taxes (13,8% increase), and their workforce has grown by 13,9% to 1560 employees.
At Startup Lithuania’ wrap-up event of the year, main achievements and statistics of the 2016 have been announced.
Rubedo Sistemos, a company founded by Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) alumni and operating at KTU Santaka Valley was mentioned as one of the most successful fund raisers: the investments in this company reached EUR 0.5 million in 2016.
KTU’s alumni name is connected to another significant milestone of the year – the first Innovation Fund in the Baltic countries launched by Lietuvos energija .
“Taking into consideration the world practice, we see investments into innovative products and services as one of the innovation fostering instruments. This will enable to attract talents and ideas from outside, and we may use this potential for the enhancement of service quality and efficiency”, says Dalius Misiūnas, Chairman of the Board and the Director General of Lietuvos energija, President of KTU Alumni Association.
2016 also has been a year of growth and maturity for the first and the largest academic start-up community in Lithuania – KTU Startup Space.
“KTU Startup Space community is developing and learning together with all Lithuanian start-up ecosystem. We have grown this year, have welcomed new teams, who, I believe will teach us all a lot. Also, just recently we have signed a cooperation agreement with a team from Belarus, thus, we are becoming international”, says Donatas Smailys, Head of KTU Startup Space.
In total more than 50 start-ups were founded at the University since 2012, when KTU Startup Space was established.
