Lithuania Pledges Roughly €600M to Promote Innovation, R&D

The Ministry of the Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania will make about €600 million ($602.5 million) available in the next few years to help bolster innovation, starting this autumn.

In an agency blog post published Aug. 17, Minister of the Economy and Innovation Aušrinė Armonaitė said public investment has worked before.

“Public investment has paid off: so far, the sectors stimulated have increased their added value by 80%, the number of employees by a tenth, and the volume of exports by 72%,” said Armonaitė. “We will continue to work in a focused and targeted way to grow the Lithuanian economy.

“We will focus on three main priorities: health technologies and biotechnologies, new production processes, materials and technologies, and information and communication technologies.”

Armonaitė said the effort aims to address evolutions in what businesses need, promoting research and innovation alongside the digitalization of industry and making new businesses. The blog said there will likely be calls for researchers to work on corporate R&D activities and for businesses to join international R&D efforts, along with asking businesses to join international partnerships in order to stimulate more innovation.

Lithuanian startups have been doing well even in spite of the international strife involved with the Russia-Ukraine war, PYMNTS wrote. Startups from the country have raised “millions” as Russia has been threatening to punish the country over blocked rail shipments to the enclave of Kaliningrad.

Read more: Lithuania’s Startup Scene Shows Resilience in the Face of Looming Russia Threats

One of the startups doing well is BitDegree, an EdTech startup which raised $1 million for its blockchain-powered Learnoverse educational platform. Additionally, kevin, which makes an account-to-account (A2A) payment infrastructure that aims to cut down on card transactions, raised $65 million.

The success of the FinTechs can be seen as a result of the Bank of Lithuania’s liberal licensing regime, as it has streamlined the licensing process, letting FinTechs obtain licenses within three months.

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