Estonia Showcases Its Most Ambitious Startups at the Startup Awards

Estonia’s leading startups, founders and investors were announced last night as the winners of the Estonian Startup Awards were announced. The winners of the Estonian Startup Awards were selected from more than 500 candidates, nominated and voted for by members of the startup community.

According to LIFT99 co-founder Elise Sass, the past year has shown that Estonia’s startup ecosystem is about much more than waiting for the next unicorn. “It’s a community of resilient builders who keep creating even when the noise dies down and the market becomes more challenging. That’s why I’m delighted to see, alongside new teams, especially resilient companies such as Starship among the finalists. They all reflect the same mindset at different stages: create, adapt and reinvent. If I had to name one common thread among this year’s nominees, it would be strong resilience, characterised by ambitious ideas, practical adaptability and a refusal to give up,” Sass said.

According to Startup Estonia, there are currently nearly 1,600 startups operating in Estonia, and the best in the sector were recognised across 11 categories.

Startup Estonia CEO Vaido Mikheim noted that this year’s awards particularly highlighted technology- and science-based startups. “It’s encouraging to see that among both the winners and nominees, science-based and technology-intensive startups stand out. Technology development has historically been a strength in Estonia, and in a rapidly evolving and highly competitive market, standing out is a far greater achievement than it might appear at first glance. Supporting the creation and growth of such solutions, recognising their value and promoting them globally is a key priority for both the state and Startup Estonia. In doing so, we are creating fertile ground for new success stories to emerge,” Mikheim said.

The DefenceTech of 2025 - KrattWorks

KrattWorks is a force multiplier delivering drones to the defence sector. In 2025, they successfully scaled their team from 22 to 68 people, secured more than €3M worth of grants, and increased their production from 100 drones per year to 120 drones per month. They expanded to 5 new markets in the EU, and secured 3 new office locations in Kyiv, Tartu and their new main HQ in Tallinn.

The Founder of the Year 2025 - Kaarel Kotkas - Veriff
In 2025, Veriff tripled service volumes year-over-year and doubled revenue, reaching a $100M+ run rate by October '25. Veriff is growing profitably, ending the year with an 81% gross margin and a ~$10M EBITDA run rate. In March, Veriff opened a tech hub in Brazil and continued to expand across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and APAC, deepening its footprint in emerging markets.

The Newcomer of 2025 - Gridraven
Gridraven is the world’s leading provider of sensorless Dynamic Line Rating (DLR). Powered by ultra-precise weather prediction, their technology helps grid operators unlock up to 30% more capacity to run networks more affordably and efficiently. In 2025, Gridraven cemented its position as an industry pioneer. They raised €4M from European VCs, secured €1.5M in non-dilutive grants, and validated the solution across Elering’s full network in Estonia. Most notably, they won a nationwide tender with Finnish TSO Fingrid, making Gridraven the only DLR provider globally to successfully convert a pilot into a full-scale deployment. They have since expanded to the U.S. with a new office in Austin, Texas, and are currently advancing pilot conversations on every continent.

The Revenue Hack of 2025 - Veriff

AI-native Veriff is the trust layer for the internet - to trust online, you need to Veriff. In 2025, Veriff tripled service volumes year-over-year and doubled revenue, reaching a $100M+ run rate by October '25. Veriff is growing profitably, ending the year with an 81% gross margin and a ~$10M EBITDA run rate.

The HealthTech of 2025 - Muun Health
Female-led Muun Health is developing the first wearable device (biosensor) for female hormone monitoring to tackle the global problem of infertility and to disrupt the 26B $ IVF market. In 2025, they grew the number of people working on the R&D from 4 to 13, reached laboratory PoC, obtained €150k in grant funding and closed their €549k pre-seed round. Established academic, industrial and clinical partnerships in 7 different countries in the EU.

The FinTech of 2025 - Veriff
A global identity company Veriff doubled revenue past the $100M scale, reached profitability, tripled service volumes year-over-year, and continued winning major global customers, including Bumble, Instacart, Uber, and Western Union. After taking a decade to verify 400 million people, Veriff is now on track to complete another 400 million verifications by May 2026, driven by the global businesses’ need to catch AI-generated fraud. In March, Veriff opened a tech hub in Brazil and continued to expand across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and APAC, deepening its footprint in emerging markets.

The SaaS Startup of 2025 - Pactum AI
Pactum AI builds autonomous negotiation agents that negotiate deals at scale for the world’s largest enterprises. In 2025, they doubled the customer base, adding BMW, Rolls-Royce, AstraZeneca, Nestlé and UPS amongst others; raised Estonia’s largest round - $54M led by Insight Partners; grew the team from 99 to 155; surpassed the magical $10M ARR; while the agents negotiated 4x more $ than in the first five years combined.

The DeepTech of 2025 - Skeleton Technologies
Skeleton Technologies builds mission-critical power infrastructure for AI data centers, grid stability, and defense. 2025 was Skeleton’s strongest year on record. In November 2025, they opened two large-scale factories in the same month - a €220M SuperFactory in Leipzig, Germany, and a €50M SuperBattery plant in Finland, the first European factory dedicated to high-power batteries for AI data centers - bringing 11 GW of annual capacity online and supporting record revenues. This is a very rare milestone for European industry amid deindustrialisation. In 2025, they also launched GrapheneGPU, a full-system solution, that removes the power bottleneck limiting AI scale, enabling 40% lower energy consumption and 40% higher compute power. It has opened the large AI infrastructure market for Skeleton, with deliveries to US hyperscalers and making us a leading player in Europe’s sovereign AI ecosystem. 2026 will be about scale and execution, with further global expansion.

The Investor of the Year 2025 - Sten Tamkivi, Plural
After two decades of angel investing, Sten Tamkivi went full time four years ago with Plural, a €800M venture platform to back the most ambitious early stage founders to have GDP level impact on Europe. Big exit news from 2025 was selling Ready Player Me to Netflix. Besides Plural.

The Impact Visionary of 2025 - ALPA Kids
ALPA Kids develops native language e-learning games that scale. Its learning impact is continuously measured and validated by dozens of MA theses and the CEO’s PhD research. In 2025, ALPA Kids published its first book, donating 15% to children’s hospitals. With EFS, ALPA Kids kickstarted Pancake Morning, a new community event tradition inspiring kids to explore technology and startups. By the end of 2025, the purpose-driven company reached globally 2.5M+ downloads and 500+ schools as clients across the Baltics and Poland. Children spent 19.8M minutes (~38 years!) learning with ALPA and the revenue grew 92%, the team 30%, and also – in Q4 ALPA Kids received €1.2M funding, with the round led by Skaala.

The Giving Back Powerhouse of 2025 - DefenceTech Meetup

The Estonian DefenceTech Meetup has firmly established itself as a flagship event not only for the Estonian but also for the regional defense tech industry. Arranged every two months, it draws 300-500 participants and features speakers from the industry, military, and investor circles, along with dozens of presenting startups. In two years, this event has become a must-attend for anyone who is building defence startups.