The event, from Lithuanian infrastructure firm Tech Zity, is inspired by British renovation projects just like the Battersea Power Station and Tate Modern art gallery.
Tech Zity
Lithuania is constructing an enormous tech campus — Europe’s largest — within the capital of Vilnius, because it looks to turn out to be the brand new tech capital of the Baltics.
Built by Tech Zity, an infrastructure project in Lithuania, the campus is a 100 million euro ($109.6 million) development that may span 55,000 square meters and house 5,000 digital staff, the firm said Friday.
That will make it larger than Paris’ Station F, currently the most important startup campus in all of Europe.
The event is inspired by British renovation projects akin to the Battersea Power Station and Tate Modern art gallery.
Tech Zity developers will renovate a lot of sewing factories in a disused industrial space in Vilnius’ Recent Town, maintaining factory-like office floors with ceiling heights of no less than 7 meters.
The campus is geared toward encouraging Vilnius’ tech staff to come back back to the office post-pandemic.
Tech Zity
The project goals to encourage Vilnius’ tech staff to return to the office after the pandemic. Tech firms have increasingly been pushing for his or her employees to return to the office, in a reversal from the pandemic-era trend of working from home.
Lithuania’s growing tech scene
Lithuania’s tech ecosystem has grown dramatically over the past decade, Darius Zakaitis, Tech Zity’s founder, told CNBC.
“After I began 30 years ago, there have been 200 people within the Lithuanian tech ecosystem,” Zakaitis said. “Now it’s 18,000 people.”
The event project is a restoration of old disused industrial space in Vilnius’ Recent Town, which is generally known as the hipster a part of town.
Tech Zity
“It is a results of 10 years of lively young people constructing recent firms every single day. A few of them are very successful,” he said.
“Lithuanians are very productive, very results-oriented, highly-skilled guys, very aggressively constructing their very own firms,” he added.
Vilnius, the second-largest city within the Baltic states, is home to a burgeoning tech industry, including major unicorns akin to used clothing retailer Vinted and cybersecurity firm Nord.
Nord has its own 300-square-meter campus in Vilnius about 300 meters away from Tech Zity’s, while Vinted’s headquarters is roughly 200 meters away.
Tech Zity’s recent campus will include co-living spaces, restaurants and bars, and cultural and academic facilities.
Tech Zity wants the campus to foster a buzzing night life in addition to other socializing opportunities, incorporating co-living spaces, restaurants, and bars.
Tech Zity
“Vilnius is maintaining a firm position inside the European tech scene because of rapid innovations and visionary businesses akin to Tech Zity,” Valdas Benkunskas, the mayor of Vilnius, said in a press release Friday.
“Bursting with modern entrepreneurs, multinational talents, and bold investors, the capital has grown to a contemporary tech hub that evokes daring ideas, successful collaborations, and people-focused solutions.”
Lithuanian tech firms make roughly 99% of their revenues abroad, he said. He added that the country’s tech scene models itself after Israel’s, which has produced quite a few global tech successes, including self-driving tech firm Mobileye and the mapping app Waze.
Tech Zity manages three tech campuses in Vilnius, including Tech Park, Tech Loft, and Tech Spa, that are home to firms like Google, Bored Panda and Kilo Health.
The project is a big undertaking — at 55,000 square meters, it is predicted to be the most important tech startup campus in all of Europe.
Tech Zity
U.S. streaming platform Netflix has used Tech Zity locations for filming, including the docu-series “The Playlist” which focuses on Spotify founder Daniel Ek.
Currently occupying 20,000 square meters, Tech Zity plans to achieve 80,000 square meters over time, considering recent campuses, existing locations, and other projects.
Long strategy to go
Despite its recent successes, Lithuania is removed from becoming a significant tech hub that rivals the likes of the U.K., France or Germany.
The country attracted 222 million euros of enterprise capital funding in 2022, paling as compared to its Western European peers. In contrast, U.K. tech startups raised $30 billion, while their French counterparts raised 13.5 billion euros.
However the country has been drawing more interest from enterprise capitalists, in accordance with local founders.
“All the highest VC firms are actually coming to Lithuania and talking with startups, angel investors, and anyone else,” Tom, CEO and co-founder of Nord Security, told CNBC on the sidelines of the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, last November.
“The last raise for a Lithuanian startup called Kevin was from Accel, Vineted has Insight Parnters, EQT, Accel, and plenty of others.”
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