Baltic Sea Crew

Hi, we are the Baltic Sea Crew. During the summer of 2021, we went on a voyage through the Baltics – talking to Startup Founders, VCs, and even government and Central Bank representatives to gain a 360° understanding of the booming startup ecosystem in this European microcosm!

Manasvi Srivastava

Founded and sold a Fintech venture enabling unbanked customers to make cashless payments
Senior Cloud Specialist at Volkswagen Group, Sweden
Patent Engineer at Sony Japan

Gijs Wilbers

Corporate M&A lawyer focussed on renewable energies sector
Prior experience with developing strategies to finance and commercialize research prototypes

In the video below, we cover the highlights of our trip, the conversations that helped shape our understanding of startups, and our key takeaways and insights from the tour.

A vicious cycle? The link between macro issues and social unrest and how startups are trying to help

Team KenyaCap were overwhelmed by Kenya’s striking beauty and its people’s warmth and personality. It was saddening therefore to watch as the nation faced waves of protests throughout the summer. These were primarily against the rising cost of living and proposed tax hikes. This unrest, born out of socio-economic challenges, disrupted daily life and, unfortunately, […]

Kenya leapfrogging to sustainable agriculture

Kenya, a country blessed with diverse landscapes and vibrant cultures, is gaining recognition not only for its awe-inspiring wildlife and natural beauty but also for its rapidly advancing Agritech ecosystem. Having recently embarked on a journey to this remarkable nation, the Kenyacap team had the privilege of immersing in Kenya’s ever-growing agricultural innovation landscape. During […]

Thinking smartly about what we already produce

“How can food businesses maintain a focus on sustainability while also scaling?” was our SSUP tour’s guiding question. We combined our pre-INSEAD professional journeys through the realms of purchasing, production, and sales, and our deep-rooted passion for sustainable ingredients and systems, to answer it in conversations with innovative Start-Up founders. In this blog post, we delve into the critical nexus of agriculture, […]

For the future of agriculture, the past is a good place to start

Over the course of our summer tour exploring the French foodtech and agtech ecosystem, we were impressed by the variety of approaches and solutions that the entrepreneurs we met are taking to confront the numerous challenges the world is facing in terms of food sustainability, hunger, climate change, biodiversity, environmental collapse, and more. Many of […]

Team AKA Digital: healthcare digitalization in KSA (part 2)

Team AKA Digital kicked off the Summer Startup Program in June 2023 to explore the healthcare digitalization ecosystem regarding the prevention and treatment of obesity and diabetes in Saudi Arabia, to understand the startups’ position in the ecosystem, and how they contributed to preventing and treating these diseases. In our previous post, we offered a […]

Manasvi Srivastava

Gijs Wilbers

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