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As states across NATO's eastern flank face a raft of hostile actions from Moscow and Minsk ranging from drone incursions to cyberattacks, experts say startups like his are improving the region's economic resilience and helping to deter Russian aggression.
- 'Scalable solutions' -
An active startup scene has developed in Lithuania and its fellow Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia in the decades since their transition from Soviet-controlled command economies.
It is even home to several companies that are now well known far from the Baltics, such as Vinted, Bolt and Skype.
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Entrepreneurs are filling gaps left by traditional arms contractors.
The conflict in Ukraine has seen a massive technological shift in warfare, with drones and robots taking on much of the fighting.
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That has put a premium on quick development as well as the capacity to rapidly scale up production.
"The current technology that will drive, and is currently driving, the transition of European arms must be as scalable as it must be high-tech," says [Rapolas Markevicius, a former managing at private equity fund in Lithuania who is now running Pdkinematics - a startup that builds precision guidance systems that help drones strike targets more accurately even when GPS signals are jammed].
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Defence startups across the region have been able to attract significant foreign investment.
"The Baltic states have really been tried and tested over the past four years about how they needed to restructure their economies, reorient and really invest in their defence capabilities," said Mario Bikarski, Senior Europe Analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
"They are really now some of the best-prepared countries to withstand a wide range of new forms of attacks," he added.
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