Jonė started her career at IBM to see what tech dinosaurs look like and never wanted to go back to the life of a global corporation. So she dived right into advising startups at Civitta and Startup Division, and later — managing the first VC fund under Startup Wise Guys flagship. 50 investments later, FIRSTPICK was born. Jonė knows it all about fundraising, strategy, and metrics, and is passionate about marketplaces, wellness tech, and fintech.

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Dmitrij‘s track record includes several of his own businesses — some failed, some exited. His own experience led to a management consulting career where he learned everything about hands-on work, analytical thinking, project management, business development, coaching, leadership, and team management. Finally, Dmitrij entered the VC world to manage his first fund together with Jonė — and now, continuing this journey at FIRSTPICK, he shares all of the product-market fit, sales, and strategy know-how with portfolio startups.

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Andra started her tech career in promoting tech entrepreneurship skills among Lithuanian youth and soon turned to management consulting at Civitta and Startup Division, where she helped startups raise funds, commercialize products, innovate, and scale across Europe. Upon joining Startup Wise Guys, Andra ran acceleration programs for 50 startups — scouting, selecting startups, executing programs, and providing post-program support. Now, she generously shares her fundraising, metrics, value proposition, and pitching expertise with startups from the Baltics.

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With 15 years of international experience in company management, strategy, sales, marketing, business development, and operations for software markets and technologies, Marijus tried both consultant and founder‘s shoes — successfully launching a tech startup in the US and an award-winning SaaS company, Teamgate. After moving to the VC side, he managed a 200+ startup portfolio at the fastest-growing startup accelerator in the CEE. His work at FIRSTPICK involves mentoring startups in the areas of strategy, goals, investor decks, fundraising, and business plans.

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Simona started her career at PwC and later SEB Bank, working with some of the largest local and global companies in the areas of operations, business, and financial analysis using BI and data automation tools. After joining the embedded finance and core banking provider Kernolab, she entered the startup world and worked as a link between the IT and business teams. The startup ecosystem felt like home for her, and this is how Simona ended up at FIRSTPICK. She remains passionate about the challenges solved by fintech, tech companies’ competition analysis, and strategic management.

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Jokūbas started his career at 15, working in customer service and as a sales rep at an early-stage Lithuanian startup, where he got the vital know-how of how a startup operates. While studying at SSE Riga, Jokūbas interned with AML at Western Union and as a financial analyst at Central Africa‘s energy tech startup, where he created and improved various financial and operational models. There, he discovered that combining his analytical and sales experiences would help him flourish in the VC ecosystem. This is how Jokūbas joined FIRSTPICK. Jokūbas is keen on analyzing the potential innovation of climate, better world, and gaming startups, especially exploring their market potential.

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