The 1 April First Tuesday event in the offices of PRnews․io inspired and connected over 100 company leaders, business experts, institutional stakeholders, and purposeful investors. Three honorary guests gave their insights into international investing.
About Switzerland and Estonia
Swiss entrepreneur Daniel Nef compared the Swiss and Estonian business ecosystems. He sees a lot of commonalities that could benefit any cooperation between the two countries. “There are some important differences too,” he said, “The Estonians have a very pragmatic let’s do it attitude, whereas the Swiss are more into details and more rigid — and the government is not as digital as the Estonian, so Estonians who would like to invest in Switzerland might be faced with more paper bureaucracy, than they like.
Only international companies are worth it
Baltcap partner Martin Kõdar explained that their investment interest is in companies that have a potential to grow in value. “That means the company’s shares should become more valuable in the years after we entered as an active investor,” said Martin. “That also means a company has to want to scale across borders. Estonia is too small a market for most companies.” He added that growing in value is much more than growing in profit. “Also sustainability is being valued by international investors.”
International means “more than Finland and Latvia”
Investor of the year 2025 Lev Dolgatsjov, explained what it means to be international: “A deal braker for me is when startups illustrate their international expansion with two arrows: up to Finland and down to Latvia. That is definitely not international growth.” Lev invests in the Baltics, in Europe and in the US. “We are already seeing a trend in European investments, in the turmoil of the recent events. Also Dual-Use, DefenceTech, and AI are current hypes. But be careful. I advise investors to do their homework.”
Next “First Tuesday” about international HR on May 6
The next First Tuesday will take place on 6 May. The specific challenge we will talk about is hiring, onboarding, team building, and culture merging of international teams.
A relevant topic for those looking to scale across borders.
The HR managers of Scoro and PRnews․io will be on stage, as well as an M&A expert who has integrated teams from different cultures.
Want to be there too?
Pictures of the 1 April event …
