Unicorns are badges of honour for many countries, but the success of a start-up ecosystem cannot be measured by mythical creatures alone.
Just six months after Cast AI, an automation platform for cloud native and AI workloads, crossed the billion-dollar mark, Lithuania has produced another unicorn. With Oxylabs, a web intelligence and data infrastructure provider, reaching a 3.6 billion US dollars (3.1 billion euros) valuation following a 130 million US dollars investment from Warburg Pincus, the country’s capital, Vilnius, is proving once again that globally competitive technology businesses can be built from Lithuania while remaining rooted in the local ecosystem.
Founded in Vilnius, Oxylabs spent more than a decade growing without external funding before reaching more than 350 million US dollars in annual recurring revenue and serving over 350,000 customers worldwide. Its first institutional funding marks a significant milestone not only for Oxylabs, but also for Lithuania’s increasingly mature technology ecosystem. Besides Cast AI, the company joins other unicorns Nord Security, Vinted, Baltic Classifieds Group, and Flo Health.
The company is also the latest example of a broader trend, reflecting the Lithuanian capital’s growing ability to produce globally competitive technology companies while retaining talent, headquarters, and investment locally. What’s more, Vilnius was Europe’s fastest-growing tech city in 2025, while the value of Lithuania’s start-up ecosystem has expanded 6.8 times over the past decade, marking it the strongest growth rate in Central and Eastern Europe.
“Oxylabs proves that there isn’t a single formula for building a unicorn. It grew for years without institutional funding, focused on long-term value creation, and became one of Europe’s leading technology companies. That’s an important signal for the next generation of founders,” says Gintarė Verbickaitė, CEO of Unicorns Lithuania, an association representing over 130 start-ups, tech companies, and the country’s unicorns.
“Every investment by a top-tier global investor sends the message [that] world-class technology companies can be built here. Another unicorn shows that our ecosystem is consistently producing businesses that can compete globally.”
More than a horn
Mangirdas Šapranauskas, head of the business department at Go Vilnius, called the capital a mature technology hub as its 2025 figures were published in late January. Vilnius start-ups were by then worth 15.5 billion euros and had drawn 212 million euros of venture capital over the year, a rise of 60 per cent. The Dealroom index that named the city the European Union’s fastest-growing weighs five things: business-value growth, funding levels, start-up density, output per head and unicorn creation. Unicorn creation is one of the five. The latest Reinvantage IT Competitiveness Index placed it fourth of 32 countries surveyed.
Atomico’s Tom Wehmeier published the firm’s State of European Tech survey in November. Europe generates 17 per cent of new global enterprise value, the survey found, but banks only 10 per cent of exit value, with founders and head offices drifting towards America. Emily Turner, who runs HSBC Innovation Banking in Britain, put a figure on what stays: a European tech workforce of 4.3 million, and company formation up 35 per cent on the year. Oxylabs, bootstrapped since 2015, kept its head office in Vilnius throughout.
Lithuania’s economy minister, Edvinas Grikšas, presented Dealroom’s latest tally at the Innovation Agency’s end-of-year event in late January, telling the room the aim was to “create long-term value for the national economy”. The figures put the country’s start-ups at 16.4 billion euros, up 5.9 times in five years against a regional average of 1.6, with 220 million euros raised from 77 separate investors. Its roughly 20,000 employees earn about double the national wage. The sector paid 477 million euros into the state budget in 2024.
In May, Karolina Urbonaitė, head of Startup Lithuania at the Innovation Agency, welcomed the year’s global rankings, which placed Vilnius 51st in the world for start-up density. Density and new-company formation are the numbers her agency watches at the front of the funnel. The state readied a 40 million euros early-stage fund and a 20 million euros accelerator in 2024, with money flowing from 2025.
Vytautas Savickas, Oxylabs’ chief executive, announced the Warburg Pincus deal on July 10, a decade after the firm turned away its first outside investor. The money bought into a business that had built its revenue in Vilnius and, importantly, chose to keep it there.
Photo: Dreamstime.