Ragnar Sass’ Post

Pipedrive was very proud to host yesterday 🇪🇪 2nd Defence Tech Meetup, with more than 200 folks from 9 different countries. This is the biggest event that we ever had Pipedrive office. Just recently it would be impossible to imagine that serious generals would have active talks with startup founders - but this is the new reality in 🇪🇪. But all Europe's startup ecosystem seems to be waking up to a new harsh reality - and there is a growing number of very serious investors that are actively looking to enter Defence Tech - from Sequoia Capital to Y Combinator. Our next event in Tallinn will be already end of May, but very soon we will start tour in Europe. As only joining our forces we will help 🇺🇦 to win AND bring peace back to Europe!

Next Tuesday is the 2nd Estonian Defence Tech meetup - registration is closing in the next 48 hours! And momentum is huge - * Last 2 months at least 3 🇪🇪🇺🇦 Military startups have finalized the seed round - among them Krattworks who pitched in our 1st event! * In 2nd event founders/ investors flying in from 🇩🇪 🇩🇰🇨🇿 🇱🇻 🇱🇹 🇫🇮 * There are a growing number of successful- growing 🇺🇦 Defence Tech startups who are making HQ in 🇪🇪 - to attract London, Berlin & US capital. * 2nd event is extended to a half-day event - giving more time for networking/discussions. And we keep a strict invite-only & no online streaming policy! Most importantly - many new solutions have been tested already in 🇺🇦 & will make a real difference very soon.

💥💥 💥 Please meet my first Defence tech investment - 🇪🇪 KrattWorks - building jamming-resistant drones! Most importantly - Ghost Dragon will be in 🇺🇦 after weeks to replace Chinese DJIs! The world as we know has changed forever! Most of Europe has to rebuild its army & defense industry ultra-fast! So this is just the first step - next months looking to make at least 5 more investments, especially interested in talking with 🇺🇦 teams - to help scale faster! With ONE GOAL - help 🇺🇦 to WIN! So anyone who knows very promising folks - connect them with me or Helery Pops

🐶 🐶 🐶 NAFO 330 🛻 ✅ 🫡 🇺🇦

My 🇺🇦 friend summary about last week. A bit more than 2 years he lived very similar life like we all - worked every day in office as programmer. We ALL should extremely grateful to every single 🇺🇦 soldier, who are defending our normal beautiful life in Europe & beyond.

Please meet Anna-Liisa She ❤️ to 🏃♀️. And knows the price of Freedom. She has been visiting Ukraine twice with NAFO convoys & knows how badly 🇺🇦 medics are in need of casevac vehicles! This is WHY She is organizing the first 🇪🇪 Startup Charity Race - 4x400m. 100% of fees will finance building NAFO casevac for 🇺🇦! JOIN today & See you on 25th April!

2 years ago I bought my first Toyota Hilux for 🇺🇦 - with the help of these fast & furious brain-damaged fellas we have delivered now 308 ✅

The 2024 Startup Black Swan (or Duck) effect seems to be going from a totally unexpected area - a secondary market! I have been talking last weeks with 20+ secondary investors from the EU & US and most of them believe that the next 6-12 months are the most active in the last 10 years! And here is WHY - 1. There have been much less primaries in the last 24 months. So stress among early investors and employees is only increasing next comings. One big startup ex-employees teamed up recently & started to find buyers separately from the company - sending emails to several VCs - is an extreme example of growing pain. 2. But companies are still pushing primaries to the future, as there is still a big gap between the 2021 boom & 2024 valuations. Before COVID usual discount for secondary deals for common shares was 20%. Now discount could be from 10% to 70% - if we leave out extreme deals when the company is totally broken. But investor's & founders' view are close every month. 3. Most growth companies have significantly improved KPIs in the direction of profit to delay the next primary round. Just yesterday I received an investor update from a company that has fundraised in total 50 mil, but did already 11 million profit last year! Beat that! 4. There are many small positive signals about price. When Klarna's valuation lost a whopping 85% from 45 billion in June 2021 to 6.7 billion in July 2022. But now - last 6 months have shown 45% increase! And same mode applies to Stripe whose shares have been growing 32% by last 6 months. 5. As harsh reality for founders is that proper secondary deal demands way more energy from companies than before. Due Diligence & data research are much bigger then ever - dragging average deal closing into several months. By my biggest surprise, many secondary deals with hundreds of participants are run in 20+ year-old Excel. This is exactly what we have been working the last few months with Salto X - launching secondary as a service for first companies very soon.

What could be a better start to birthday morning, than sending another 11 NAFO truck to 🇺🇦 ! ✅ NAFO Convoy nr 26 is on the way to Kyiv - with ❤️ from 🇪🇪 ! Все буде Україна!

Here is a photo of the Pipedrive office in Tallinn! And street billboard shows how the Pipedrive office would look if Russia would liberate us. This is the most powerful art exhibition, that I have seen recently. Starting wave of discussions - what should we say to kids etc ... until the most extreme voices calling to ban it! HELL NO - every major city should have similar art - reminding us how good life we all live and showing extreme reality at this moment in 🇺🇦 ! Huge applause to 🇪🇪  artist Estookin ja Rebeca Parbus, touching strongly society's nerves!