How Europe’s biggest tech campus is growing out of a Soviet-era sock factory

A bus stop just outside is called “Unicorn,” celebrating the tech giants Vinted and Nord Security, whose headquarters are meters away.

Marijus Briedis, Nord Security’s chief technology officer, says the area used to be a “no-go zone.”

“It was a dangerous area to be,” he said, speaking from an office in his company’s brand-new headquarters there.

Nord Security became Lithuania’s second billion-dollar tech unicorn in 2022, three years after Vinted joined the club.

Briedis described a sea of Soviet-era factories, ramshackle buildings, and unsavory characters that once populated the area.

Now, he said, it’s changing fast, driven by Lithuania’s burgeoning tech startup scene. Nord’s building takes its inspiration from Silicon Valley tech campuses.

“I would say the last five years was a really booming period for all the startups and startup community,” Briedis said. “Because we just exploded.”

After World War II, Lithuania was forcibly absorbed into the Soviet Union, only gaining its independence in 1990. For years, the country was mainly known as a destination for cheap city breaks, but that’s changed in recent years.

Between 2018 and 2023, Lithuania’s startup ecosystem grew significantly, with the combined enterprise value of the country’s startups increasing more than sevenfold.

Lithuania now has more than 900 startups. It claims to have at least three unicorns, as well as the fastest-growing startup ecosystem in the Baltics and the second-largest in terms of VC investment in Central and Eastern Europe.

Lithuania, with a population of less than 3 million, has a much smaller market than neighboring larger countries, Briedis noted. “So, you have to think globally.”

Europe’s biggest tech campus

Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, sits at the center of this startup scene — the city is responsible for about 90% of all Lithuanian startup enterprise value.

Valdas Benkuskas, the city’s mayor, said it contributes almost half of the country’s GDP.

As a startup powerhouse, Vilnius is now vying to become a tech hub to rival European giants like Berlin, London, and Amsterdam — though it’s still some way off.

Yet its transformation is best exemplified by projects like Cyber City, and another even more ambitious project now underway, the mayor told BI.

Tech Zity, an ambitious project a short walk from Cyber City, could help to turbocharge Lithuania’s tech scene.

“Lithuania moved on from the 90s when we gained independence and it was mainly factories, sewing factories, metallurgy,” says Kipras Krasauskas, the COO of Tech Zity, now a sprawling construction site.

“The next stage was we started creating retail companies and transportation companies,” he said, “and now the next generations come and they are creating global products — NordVPN, Vinted, Kilo Health.”

Several companies have already secured space in what is poised to become Europe’s largest tech campus, spanning 592,015 square feet and accommodating up to 5,000 workers.

At the moment, it’s just dusty floors, steel supports, and exposed wooden beams.

But Krasauskas envisions the tech campus as a vibrant community where entrepreneurs can build startups, connect with venture capitalists, secure funding, and close deals.

He hopes it will become a European center for innovation and a breeding ground for future unicorns, which will help the Lithuanian economy go from strength to strength.

“I believe more and more parts of our GDP will be created within this area,” he said.

Like Cyber City, Tech Zity is being developed on the site of a Soviet-era factory.

While the old sewing factory still operates from a smaller building nearby, the larger structure is being transformed into the campus hub, which will feature restaurants, a sports center, and a conference center.

“Our idea for Tech Zity is not to demolish and build new buildings, but try to renovate the old ones and give them new life and new function,” Krasauskas says, gesturing to a display of repurposed items.

Old window frames will be converted into meeting boxes, he says, while wooden beams are now coworking tables and halogen lights have been upcycled into an art display.

A changing city

While the city is embracing its ambitions as a tech hub, it is determined to preserve traces of its darker Soviet past.

Back in his office, Benkuskas, the mayor, explains that while the tech companies are new, they purposefully “bought old territories, which were old factories built in the Soviet Union and abandoned for many years.”

“That illustrates how Lithuania and Vilnius have changed from Soviet times, with old technologies and neglected buildings, to new technologies, a new economy, and newfound strength,” he says.

“I’m proud that we are transforming the city in this way.”