Post by Garage48

Spring has gone by incredibly fast, and we’re been busy with many cool projects and events. One of the highlights was the Scaleup Gateway program, organised together with e-Residency. For the second year in a row, we brought together ambitious startup founders from across Latin America to Estonia (and this won’t be the last time 😉 ). Over 10 packed days, we had the pleasure of welcoming entrepreneurs from Mexico, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, and beyond to explore Estonia’s startup ecosystem and discover what makes our digital nation so unique. Of course, e-Residency is known for making it easy to run a business online and access the European market. But what really makes Estonia special are the people behind the ecosystem. Founders, investors, ecosystem builders, public-sector representatives, mentors, and e-residents all contribute to a community that is open, collaborative, and always willing to share experiences and help others grow. During the program, founders got a behind-the-scenes look at how things work in Estonia. We talked about e-Residency, company formation, fundraising, sales and marketing, intellectual property, taxation, scaling internationally, and much more. The program started in Tartu. Thanks, Sparkup Tartu Science Park, for hosting us in Tartu and helping us showcase the best of the local startup ecosystem. During the program, we visited several companies and met startup founders, investors (thanks, Jaan Kokk and Jana Budkovskaja, for sharing investor insight!), ecosystem organisations, and public-sector representatives (thanks, Henrik Kutberg and Vaido Mikheim, for giving a great overview of how Estonia supports startups and innovation). A special thank you to Lauri Kinkar and Vaido Mikheim for the honest and inspiring fireside chat about building Mobi Group. Instead of polished success stories, they shared the real journey - the wins, the the difficult decisions, and the lessons learned along the way. 😍 And ofc, no startup visit to Estonia would be complete without a few saunas, great conversations, and a visit to Latitude59 + plenty of sideevents. A huge thank you to the e-Residency, Guillermo Chávez García, and Work in Estonia, Sandra Rebane, Martin B., Rannar Park, Mari Hanikat, Laura Gredzens, Mia Alter.. all our wonderful speakers and mentors, hosts, and partners, who contributed to this program. 💖 And to all the founders who joined us- thank you for bringing your energy, curiosity, and entrepreneurial spirit to Estonia. We hope to see many of you back here again soon. 💙🖤🤍 #ScaleupGatway #eresidency