Projects | Sten Tamkivi

Limitless

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 09:21:28 +0300

Limited Partner.

Limitless backs companies who reduce harm for the planet, save lives & livelihoods.

Limitless is looking for scalable products and services tackling climate change, digital health or education, and backs passionate teams willing to pursue long-term meaningful goals.

The fund specialises in revenue based financing. This means that we prefer not to take a stake in your company, rather we take a percentage of the monthly revenue your business makes during a specific time span. We are interested in you building up a financially sustainable business while creating as much positive impact as possible.

Founded and managed by Jorma Laiapea and Marge Maidla. Backed by early Transferwise and Skype alumni.

Based in Tallinn, Estonia.

Acapela

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 09:15:22 +0300

Seed investor.

Acapela helps remote teams be more productive by avoiding unnecessary video meetings.

Founded by Roland Grenke and Heiki Riesenkampf.

Read more from the launch coverage at Techcrunch.

Flamingo DAO

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 09:14:56 +0300

DAO member.

Flamingo is an NFT-focused DAO…

Wait, what?

NFT = non-fungible token
DAO = decentralized autonomous organization

Flamingo DAO explores emerging investment opportunities for ownable, blockchain-based assets. NFTs are not just cat pictures. They encompass digital art, collectibles, and in-game assets and other tangible assets. These new forms of digital property are poised to play an increasing role in helping to create, monetize, and incentivize online digital content.

NFTs are not interchangeable, and they thus introduce a new form of scarcity in the digital world. They can represent digital or real-world assets, providing verifiable proof of authenticity and ownership (assuming they are created by the original author or owner) using a blockchain network.

Flamingo is entirely member-directed and managed by the Members through democratic voting.

Founders Pledge

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:00:22 +0300

Member.

We’re a global community of entrepreneurs finding and funding solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Every member, including myself, has made a legally binding commitment to donate a portion of personal proceeds on liquidity to social causes. The Founders Pledge team provides charity research and vetting, a global network of experts, and end-to-end giving infrastructure, and they take no cuts and charge no fees. They also host community events across the globe.

See also:

Research: Empowering Strategic Philantrophy

Promonos

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 19:16:05 +0300

Limited Partner.

Promonos Capital is on a mission to build prosperous cities that uplift entire regions. We do this by working with citizens, states, and developers to upgrade laws and institutions for greater justice and well-being.

Decades of research on economic development has shown that the primary determinant of prosperity is the quality of a country’s laws and the integrity of its courts, administrators, and other legal institutions.

When institutions are outmoded, corrupted, or failing, the result is untold human suffering. Workers are trapped in low wage jobs and dangerous working environments, children don’t get educated, adults can’t get quality healthcare, and people can’t start businesses to support their families. Yet, upgrading national institutions is notoriously difficult, and consensus on country-level changes should be slow and deliberate.

Our solution? Build the cities of tomorrow. ‍ At Pronomos Capital, we’re using the lessons of Silicon Valley to create a new model for urban development where the city is the product. Our portfolio founders work in partnership with countries to create new communities that seek - through good governance - to emulate the economic success of Dubai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Singapore.

Founded by Patri Friedman. Based in San Francisco, CA.

LocalGlobe

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 19:15:21 +0300

Limited Partner.

LocalGlobe has spawned into a notable startup building empire in London.

Their Phoenix Court next to King’s Cross is the home of LocalGlobe, Latitude, The Newton Venture Program and Alpha Works. It’s a Members’ Club for the founders that we work with and their teams. We’re a hub for the local community and wider ecosystem.

Founded by Saul Klein and Robin Klein.

Filecoin

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 19:14:56 +0300

Investor.

Filecoin is a decentralized storage network, powered by a blockchain and a native token.

I invested in the nascent project in 2017. Filecoin mainnet launched in October 2020 and is currently valued at:

Built by Protocol Labs, on top of IPFS, an open source peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol.

Founded by Juan Batiz-Benet.

Outfunnel

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 17:11:01 +0300

Seed investor.

Sales & Marketing, finally together. Outfunnel is a sales-centric marketing automation tool that tightly integrates with modern CRMs like Pipedrive and Copper. Automate email marketing campaigns, track email and website behavior from click to conversion and get useful insights.

Founded by Andrus Purde, an early Skyper

Maki.vc

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 15:24:23 +0300

Limited Partner.

Maki.vc is an early-stage venture capital firm in Helsinki, Finland, partnering with deep tech & brand-driven companies obsessed with challenging category norms.

Founded by Ilkka Kivimäki and Pirkka Palomäki.

Career Karma

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 15:05:08 +0300

Seed Investor.

Career Karma is a community of peers, mentors and coaches that will help you land a dream career in Tech. You never pay a dime. The only cost is to help people behind you.

Career Karma is always free for students because after we coach you to prepare and get enrolled into a bootcamp in our network, the school pays us a placement fee for helping you.

Founded by Ruben Harris, Timur Meyster, Artur Meyster.

See also:

Breaking into Startups podcast by Ruben & team

Skillshare

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 14:30:06 +0300

Investor.

Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more. On Skillshare, millions of members come together to find inspiration and take the next step in their creative journey.

Curve

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 14:29:52 +0300

Investor.

Curve is to Banking what Netflix is to TV and Spotify to Music. “We connect All Your Cards in One Smart Card. And One Even Smarter App. We bring you financial freedom and endless opportunities. All in One place. Simply One-derful.”

Based in London, early investment by Seedcamp

Curve, the ‘over-the-top’ banking platform, raises $55M at a $250M valuation on TechCrunch

Starship

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 13:55:26 +0300

Investor.

Starship is building a network of robots ready to serve you anytime, anywhere.

Founded by Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis ( Skype co-founders).

Tiny Supercomputer

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 20:04:04 +0300

Limited Partner.

Tiny Supercomputer Investment Company (TinySCIC) is an early stage venture fund investing in pre-seed and seed stage companies in Europe, from Berlin, Germany.

Founded by Philipp Moehring and Andy Chung.

Remote First Capital

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 20:02:54 +0300

Limited Partner.

A group of remote founders, operators and early investors investing in the next generation of remote work.

Founded by Andreas Klinger

Superangel

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 16:43:41 +0300

Limited Partner.

Superangel provides early stage investments from entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs, runs Alpine house, a “high altitude” bootcamp program and Palo Alto Club, a coworking and events space in Tallinn, Estonia.

Founded by Rain Rannu, Veljo Otsason and Marek Kiisa.

Helmes

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 16:39:55 +0300

Executive and Board member, 2001-2005.

Helmes is one of the leading custom software developers and system integrators in the Baltic states, mostly serving large logistics, finance, telecom and utilities companies as well as the public sector.

I joined Helmes with a number of colleagues from the shut down of Halo Interactive DDB. My first task was to build up Helmes' User Experience Design discipline and a Web Development team in the then budding Software Engineering division.

Starting from 2003 I sat on the corporate Board of Directors looking after new business generation and innovative ventures for the group. My clients were in Estonia, Scandinavia, Central Europe and the UK.

ASI Private Equity

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 16:39:46 +0300

Partner and Chairman.

ASIPEAS is an investment collective of Skype founders and early employees.

Ambient Sound Investments (ASI) was established in 2003 as a partnership of four founding engineers to hold their stake in Skype. After an exit to eBay in 2005, ASI operates as a private investment vehicle, managing over 100 million EUR of assets and direct investments.

ASI Private Equity AS (ASIPEAS) was conceived in 2006 to allow a number of friends and colleagues from Skype to co-invest with the partnership. Working closely together at a heady pace in the early days of Skype aligned our thinking, we often share mutual interests and opinions when considering new technology ventures. With about 30 investors, ASIPEAS extends its entrepreneurs' network and competence base sevenfold. As a closed investment vehicle, ASIPEAS does not solicit funds from the general public.

Estonia's Friends International Meeting

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 16:25:58 +0300

Co-Patron.

Estonia’s Friends International Meeting (EFIM) was called to life to thank and recognize business, political and cultural figures whose actions and advice have helped Estonia to become a truly European country with a dynamic economy and thriving culture.

We welcome our friends to Estonia to exchange ideas on the future of Estonia and to have a close look at our country’s ambitions, culture, nature, its business community and political decision-makers.

The invitees get access to intellectually stimulating business discussions, high profile government visits and a world-class cultural program.

Registration by invitations only.

The first Estonia’s Friends International Meeting was held in August 2010 in Tallinn. The tradition was kicked off as a joint initiative by Enterprise Estonia, entrepreneur Mr Margus Reinsalu and former President of Estonia Mr Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

Sten’s involvement in EFIM events:

2015: moderated the symposium “Quo Vadis, Estonia?” with my Teleport co-founder and Andreessen Horowitz partner Balaji S. Srinivasan as the keynote speaker. See the video here.
2016: held a kenote speech at the symposium on the global competition for mobile talent. See the video here.
2019: moderated the symposium with Ott Kaukver, CTO of Twilio as keynote speaker. See the photo gallery and short summary video here
2020: became the official co-patron of EFIM, along with President Ilves and Mr Kaukver. Next event postponed to 2021 due to global pandemic.

President Ilves

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 16:21:12 +0300

Advisor to President Ilves of Estonia.

In 2009-12 I was honored to act as an advisor to President Toomas Hendrik Ilves on matters related to information technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Here’s the announcement at the time.

We have contnued collaboration on other projects since, most notably on Estonia’s Friends International Meeting.

Estonian Founders Society

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 14:00:22 +0300

President 2019, Vice President 2020.

Estonian Founders' Society (EFS) aims to boost local startup community, strengthen direct relationships between founders, meet face to face in a social setting, share experiences and empower new young founders.

EFS was founded in 2009, and by 2020 has grown to 100+ individual members. Over all, the 1000 active teams on Estonian startup tech scene employ about 1% of the workforce in the country, contribute 3% to GDP and have been growing for +30% YoY for 6 years in a row.

See also:

Estonian Startups Database by Startup Estonia
Estonian startup funding since 2006, crowdsourced spreadsheet
Quarterly revenues, headcount and employment taxes at Estonian startups by Superangel

Estonian E-Residency

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 10:56:41 +0300

Member of Supervisory Board.

Estonia is the first country to offer e-Residency, a government-issued digital identity and status that provides access to Estonia’s transparent digital business environment.

E-Residency enables digital entrepreneurs to start and manage an EU-based company online.

E-Residency is also a platform for a wide range of startups and established companies to expand their adressable market. Among those Xolo, LHV, Transferwise and many others.

Miraise

Sun, 31 May 2020 17:40:07 +0300

Limited Partner and Mentor.

MIRAISE is a Seed VC from Tokyo, Japan focused on engineer founders.

Many of the biggest companies in the world were started by young engineers, yet most investors are sometimes not bold enough to back them. MIRAISE is uniquely positioned to change this in (from) Japan with the deep technical experience of engineering and operational experience.

Founded by Shin Iwata (formerly of Skype and Atomico).

Topia

Sat, 30 May 2020 18:14:28 +0300

Chief Product Officer.

Topia’s Global Talent Mobility platform empowers HR teams to effectively deploy, manage, and engage employees across the world. We enable you to deliver mobility as part of your broader talent and business strategy with enhanced employee experiences.

The company started as Move Guides, and has been growing through a series of acquisitions fueled by 100M+ of venture capital funding. Sten joined Topia in 2017 through the acquisition of Teleport, and has been serving as Chief Product Officer since, overseeing the product management, engineering, design and data science functions of the company.

Tamkivi.org

Sat, 30 May 2020 17:48:32 +0300

Tamkivi Foundation for Natural Sciences aka Tamkivi.org supports young Estonians’ studies and research in the field of natural sciences. The Foundation is managed as an endowment by Estonian National Culture Foundation.

Tamkivi Foundation for Natural Sciences was established in 2013 in memory of father and son, Paul and Raivo Tamkivi who both passed away in the short span of the year before. The endowment was seeded by their family, friends and Tallinn Rotary Club.

The main measures provided by the Foundation are scholarships granted to winning applicants of an annual public contest. Applications are expected from Estonian citizens enrolled in masters and doctoral programs in broad field of natural sciences. In case of equally qualified candidates, preference is given to those active in the disciplines of physics (especially energetics), mathematics, medicine (especially cancer research), engineering and computer science; and to those whose activities have a notable international reach.

Haridusfond

Sat, 30 May 2020 17:46:55 +0300

Donor.

Good Deed Education Fund is a philanthropy fund founded by the new generation of Estonian entrepreneurs.

Founded by Taavet Hinrikus of Transferwise and Martin Villig of Bolt and has raised 1M EUR out of the gate, from about 30 Estonian entrepreneurs and tech companies.

We identified the following acute issues to address with the Education Fund:

The lack of appeal of the profession of teaching as the average age of teachers is constantly increasing.
Quality of school leadership (recruitment, leadership, culture and goal setting; empowering parents board).
The youth drop-out rate after the mandatory level (9 years); not graduating from the next education level.
The low levels of STEAM skills acquired from school.

Good Deed Education Fund is looking for initiatives that addresses these problems in a measurable way. Through the initiatives we will be looking for ways to increase the quality of education together with leaders from different sectors - public, private, third sector.

Vabamu

Sat, 30 May 2020 17:46:48 +0300

Supervisory Board member since April 2015.

Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom and its branch KGB Prison Cells are the largest active non-profit museum in Estonia. The museum is managed by the Kistler-Ritso Estonian Foundation.

The Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom is a place that recounts the story of the Estonian people from occupation to independence and inspires people to maintain and stand up for their freedom. We educate, engage, and encourage Estonian people and visitors to reflect on recent history, feel the fragile nature of freedom, and stand up for liberty and justice.

Sten has been serving on board through the massive re-invention, re-building and re-branding of the museum launched in 2018.

Põhjala Brewery

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:35:59 +0300

Invested in 2017.

Põhjala was founded in Tallinn, Estonia at the end of 2011 by four Estonian beer enthusiasts and home brewers. Soon thereafter the company was joined by a Scottish head brewer, Chris Pilkington, with a few years of Brewdog experience under his belt.

At the end of 2018, we moved to our new facility in the historical Noblessner shipyard area by the sea in North Tallinn.

The Põhjala Brewery and Tap Room now features a 50 hl brewhouse, state of the art lab facilities and a tap room with 120 seats and 24 taps. Põhjala currently exports to over 30 markets around the world and to almost every country in Europe.

Lahhentagge

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:35:54 +0300

Investor and consumer.

Lahhentagge is a craft distillery of gin and tonic waters.

Lahhentagge drinks (Ösel Dry Gin, Lahjentagge tonics, Flaneur non-alcoholic gin) come from a land where the summers are warm and the winters are dark. Where tall forests cast long shadows over blooming pastures, and craggy juniper trees stand afoot fields of wind-licked wild grasses. Where endless stony beaches meet a swirling sea that brings winds and wild birds from distant lands. This is the island of Ösel (aka Saaremaa) in the northern Baltic Sea.

Our distillery takes its name from our home village of Lahhentagge, birthplace of the great explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (1778–1852). Bellingshausen discovered Antarctica and was the first Russian to circumnavigate the Earth.

Oyster

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:29:37 +0300

Seed investor.

Oyster makes it easy to hire, pay, and give great benefits to your distributed team around the world.

With Oyster, you can hire remote full-time employees anywhere in the world, provide fully-compliant payroll, and give your valued remote hires around the world the benefits and perks they deserve.

Founded by Tony Jamous.

Tony’s post announcing his next mission at Oyster

Roam

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:29:29 +0300

Seed investor.

Roam is a network of global coliving spaces that provide everything you need to feel at home and be productive the moment you arrive. Strong, battle-tested wifi, a coworking space, chef’s kitchen and a diverse community.

Founded by Bruno Haid.

The Longevity Fund

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:29:10 +0300

Limited Partner.

The Longevity Fund is investing in breakthroughs in human longevity.

Based in San Francisco, California. Founded by Laura Deming.

In the 20th century, we learned that healthy lifespan is malleable. The scientific pathways behind this effect are incredibly complex and difficult to correctly control, but manipulating them may lead to new treatments for age-related disease. We want to get these therapeutic advances translated safely to patients as quickly as possible.

I other words, cutting edge biotech is key to extending happy and healthy lifetimes… but I’m not smart enough to pick investment targets directly, and am just humbled to be able to follow Laura & team.

The firm’s activities break into:

125 Labs: Conceptualizing, building, and scaling frontier biotechnology companies Biotechnology accelerator
AGE-1: Supporting early-stage companies and scientific founding teams
Longevity Fund: Founder-friendly seed & series A investing in therapeutics and platform technology

Seedcamp

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:29:04 +0300

Limited Partner.

Seedcamp is Europe’s seed fund based in London, investing early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets and solving real problems using technology.

Managed by Reshma Sohoni and Carlos Eduardo Espinal.

Atomico

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:28:58 +0300

Limited Partner.

Atomico invests in Europe’s most ambitious tech founders at Series A and beyond.

Founded by Niklas Zennström from Skype, with many other early Skypers on its global team.

Atomico publish annually a comprehensive, data-driven State of European Tech report: read the 2019 edition here

Safetywing

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:28:44 +0300

Seed investor.

SafetyWing provides Medical and Health Insurance for the remote workforce roaming around the planet.

Nomad Insurance: Travel medical insurance, covers people from all over the world, while outside their home country. Can be as low as $40/month.
Remote Health for individuals: Global health insurance for remote workers and nomads. A fully-equipped health insurance made for remote workers and nomads who spend as much time abroad as they please. Full coverage in your home country, and no exclusions for pandemics.
Remote Health for companies: A fully equipped health insurance that works for your entire international team and independent remote workers. No exclusions for pandemics.

Founded by Sondre Rasch.

Formally from Oslo, Norway and San Francisco, CA - but with a fully distributed team, appropriately.

Part of YCombinator Winter 2018 batch.

Pactum

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:28:36 +0300

Seed investor.

Pactum helps companies to unlock value from long tail by automatically negotiating contracts on a massive scale.

The system learns to understand the value of different contract terms and uses AI to perform high-quality and considerate negotiations that reach a win-win outcome.

We believe that in the near future, an organization’s strategic work will be done by humans while most of the operations and execution will be left to machines.

Founded by all-star team: Martin Rand (from Skype), Kaspar Korjus ((from E-residency)) and Kristjan Korjus (from Starship).

Levila

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:28:33 +0300

Seed investor.

Levila is an experimental media lab inventing the possible futures of journalism.

Founded by Daniel Vaarik.

To date, Levila has produced long form texts, investigate journalism research, original comic strips (from single frame cartoons to graphic novel illustrations), high end audio shows. The cast is a mix of professional actors, illustrators and engineers and fresh new faces and voices.

The content is published on Levila’s own properties, syncidated and spread via experimental cross-overs on Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud and other channels.

As an example, here’s a visual opintion piece on preparation for possible next waves of COVID-19:

Continue reading (in Estonian)…

byFounders

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:28:28 +0300

Collective member and Limited Partner.

byFounders is a unique collective of founders backing mostly Nordic and Baltic early stage entrepreneurs.

Founded and managed by Eric Lagier and Tommy Andersen.

Based in Copenhagen and San Francisco.

Ampler

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:28:22 +0300

Investor and happy rider.

Ampler makes light e-bikes for urban commuters that look simply like beautiful, understated bycicles. All the electronics and batteries are hidden inside the frame.

I’m a huge fan of my single gear Curt (pictured below), that goes up to 70km with dynamic electric support up to 25 km/h.

The company is also tradeable on Funderbeam.

Estelon

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:28:03 +0300

Seed investor.

Estelon is one of the world’s most luxurious speaker brands. It derives aesthetic and acoustic excellence through the merger of ingenious creativity and cutting-edge science. Each decision – from engineering techniques to materials and components used in the manufacturing process – is made with the perfect harmony of the speakers as a whole in mind.

Founded by Alfred Vassilkov, managed by Alissa Vassilkova.

Alfred had been designing speakers for other companies for over 25 years and spent many years researching opportunities to achieve his ambition. I had been his fan and customer since the Audes Credo Blues series of speakers he had designed. When he decided to start his own brand in 2010, I was honored to become their partner.

Digital Sputnik

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:27:55 +0300

Investor.

Digital Sputnik’s unqiue software controlled LED lightning systems have been used in movies from Star Wars to Independence Day.

Now they have made this next gen movie magic tech available to prosumers with their affordable Voyager series.

Digital Sputnik is based in Tallinn, Estonia for both R&D and manufacturing. Founded by Kaur & Kaspar Kallas.

Sunrise

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:27:32 +0300

Seed investor.

Sunrise built a truly better calendar on web and mobile.

Founded by Pierre Valade and Jeremy Le Van in NYC.

Acquired by Microsoft in 2015 for $100M+.

Human

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:27:22 +0300

Seed investor.

Human built an iOS app with elegant game mechanics to inspire people to move 30 minutes, every day.

Founded by Paul Veugen and Renato Valdes Olmos.

Acquired by Mapbox in August 2016.

Plumbr

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:27:18 +0300

Seed investor.

Plumbr APM uses tracing to provide insights into your application’s performance.

Plumbr helps customers by monitoring the real user experience of the customer’s software. They capture information about the bottlenecks and errors end users are experiencing. Integrating this information to the customer processes enables them to improve the digital user experience and cut the costs on maintenance.

Founded by Priit Potter, Ivo Mägi, Nikita Salnikov-Tarnovski and Vladimir Shor.

Acquired by Splunk in October 2020.

Xolo

Sat, 30 May 2020 12:27:07 +0000

Seed investor.

Xolo takes care of getting your one-person business up and running.

Xolo was founded as LeapIn in May 2015 out of the urge to revolutionize the way people become entrepreneurs and manage their companies.

You can start your own Estonian limited liability company (OÜ) as an E-resident or you can send invoices in partnership with Xolo without founding a company.

You don’t need to get acquainted with all the paperwork and legal jargon. Use your time to create value for your customers instead of standing in queues in public offices or visiting notaries.

Sellfy

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:27:04 +0300

Seed investor.

A simple, yet powerful e-commerce platform for creators. Sell digital products, physical goods and subscriptions all from one place.

Founded by Maris Dagis and Kristaps Alks.

Based in Riga, Latvia.

Fleep

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:27:00 +0300

Seed investor.

Fleep is a conversation-centric work messenger from a group of early Skype engineers.

Founded by Henn Ruukel, Asko Oja, Erik Laansoo, Andres Järviste, Marko Kreen.

Veriff

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:25:54 +0300

Seed investor.

Veriff builds smart and scalable identity verification products.

Connecting companies with honest people is just the first step on a journey towards a single digital identity. One day the world will be ready for a single digital identity that transcends borders, and gives people rightful ownership of their data. Until then, our identity verification flows are there to nip fraud in the bud. No device, browser, market, or language left behind.

Founded by Kaarel Kotkas and Janer Gorohhov.

Alumni of YCombinator Spring 2018 batch.

Supervaisor

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:25:35 +0300

Seed investor.

Supervaisor is building a better, AI-assisted world by fixing traffic.

Countless lives are lost in traffic every day and many more get disrupted because of accidents. Most of them we could have seen coming. Either through the eyes of the citizens or though thousands of sensors surrounding us. Our mission is to save lives in traffic by combining information from humans and AI agents.

Imagine knowing that the next intersection has 10 times more red-light crossings than the rest of your commute Imagine knowing where to change traffic order before lives are lost Imagine knowing what behaviors actually lead to loss of lives Imagine maps where each datapoint is backed by real world evidence

Founded by Silver Keskküla, my co-founder at Teleport.

Bolt

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:25:26 +0300

Investor.

Ride sharing and food delivery powerhouse covering dozens of markets in Europe and Africa with cars and scooters.

Founded by Markus & Martin Villig.

Transferwise

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:25:10 +0300

Seed investor & regular user.

The cheap, fast way to send money abroad.

Transferwise is on a mission to bring transparency to finance. We charge as little as possible, and we always show you upfront. No hidden fees. No bad exchange rates. No surprises.

Learning from My Mistakes by Ben Horowitz. Fun backstory on how sometimes great things happen when friends get connected. Even if it takes some time and persistance.

Salv

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:25:03 +0300

Founding Board Member.

Beat financial crime with a flexible AML platform. Today, millions of people around the world are cheated out of good lives because only around 1-2% of money laundering is detected. It’s time to change that. Salv knows smartly-built tech will finally help the good guys get ahead.

Founded by Taavi Tamkivi, Jeff McClelland and Sergey Rumjantsev (all from early Skype and Transferwise) fraud fighting fame.

Andreessen Horowitz

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:24:00 +0300

Entrepreneur in Residence 2013-2014, which lead to founding and funding of Teleport.

Further reading from and about this period:

Skype

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:14:32 +0300

Early executive 2005-2012.

Joined Skype as a startup about 18 months in, just before the eBay acquisition.

Grew the original R&D center to 450 people as the General Manager, and held a number of product engineering executive positions on the global basis.

Teleport

Sat, 30 May 2020 15:14:20 +0300

Co-founder & CEO, 2014-17.

Teleport built software for free people on the move.

I narrowed in on the human mobility topic during my research as an EIR at a16z. With like-minded co-founders Silver Keskküla and Balaji S. Srinivasan we decided to create a company that helps individuals figure out what is the best place for them to live an work, and how do they get there.

We raised at $2.6M seed round from Andreessen Horowitz, Seedcamp, SV Angel and several angels and started broadly experimenting in this space, launching a location search engine and a series of adjacent consumer apps.

In 2017, Teleport was acquired by Move Guides (now Topia) to become the employee-facing part of its' enterprise global talent mobility management platform.

For more from this period, see:

Teleport blog
- Public launch blog post - May 8, 2014
- Move Guides acquistion blog post - April 3, 2017
Our writings and interviews about remote work

LHV

Fri, 29 May 2020 17:52:43 +0300

Member of Supervisory Board.

LHV is the biggest domestic financial group in Estonia. Our mission is to help to create Estonian capital. According to our vision, the people and enterprises of Estonia have the courage to think big, start things and invest in the future. Our values are to be simple, supportive and effective.

My main personal passion about, and hopefully also contribution to the bank’s future is the ambition to go global: how we support the budding global fintech industry with modern, compliant and licenced banking infrastructure to innovate on. Back in 2018 we opened a branch in London with that focus, and already serve near a hundred super fast growing fintechs, led by whales like Transferwise and Coinbase.

LHV is listed on Nasdaq Tallinn Stock Exchange since 2016, which was also my first inside experience of taking a company public via an IPO.

500 Startups

Tue, 26 May 2020 15:42:20 +0300

Limited partner in a number of funds since 2012.

Forwards Studio

Fri, 01 May 2020 10:56:31 +0300

Co-founder & partner in the 90s.

Forwards Studio was a legendary sound studio and indie label in Tartu, Estonia. Founded by Lauri Liivak in 1999.

The studio spawned from late night recording sessions of Bizarre, one of my favourite bands of all time.

I became a partner when we bought the studio equipment from a local radio station, and besides recording and mastering services for bands, started to make money with radio ads and occasional sound production projects for multimedia projects at Halo.

See also:

list of Forwards Studio records at Discogs

Halo Interactive DDB

Fri, 01 May 2020 10:55:54 +0300

Founded in 1996, straight out of high school.

The first digital media agency in Estonia. Sold to DDB Worldwide in 1997. Folded in 2001 along with dotcom bubble.

A Northern Star of its time, Halo spawned a few dozen influential early internet people (UX, design, web development, software engineering) who have had notable influence on the Estonian and European startup scene over the decade since.

For some serious nostalgic flashbacks, see snapshots of halo.ee in 2001 on WayBackMachine:

1998
2001