AK

Andris K. Berzins

Partner at Change Ventures, first pan-Baltic seed fund. Co-founder & board member of TechHub Riga, TechChill and the Latvian Startup Assn. Stanford MBA 1998. Kauffman Fellow. (I ONLY CONNECT WITH PEOPLE I KNOW)

Latvia

Skills

Entrepreneurship
Start-ups
Business Strategy
Marketing Strategy
Negotiation
Marketing Communications
Corporate Development
Product Management
E-commerce
Online Marketing
Strategic Planning
Social Media
Venture Capital
Business Planning
Social Media Marketing
Digital Marketing
Product Marketing
Public Relations
Management Consulting
Business Development

Work Experience

  • Partner

    2017

    Change Ventures is a pre-seed venture capital fund with boots on the ground in all three Baltic states. We back ambitious founders based in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania as well as Baltic diaspora entrepreneurs building their businesses elsewhere in the world. Our initial investments range from €100-500k (the prior fund also invested at seed stage). Our founder-friendly no-nonsense investment process is designed to help founders with big, bold ambitions get fast investment decisions. Once we are on board, we help with getting to product-market fit, raising additional funds and growing the business, leveraging an unparalleled network of follow-on investors and partners. Feel free to contact founders of companies we have invested in to get references on us.

  • Kauffman Fellow (Class 22)

    2017

    Established in 1995 and based in Silicon Valley, Kauffman Fellows develops leaders in innovation and capital formation through its 2-year program—a transformative opportunity designed to radically accelerate innovator success through self-reflection, peer learning, mentoring, and a structured curriculum taught by venture capitalists and global thought leaders. Nearly 500 graduates lead venture capital, government, corporate, university, and startup innovation efforts in more than 40 countries. The bonds that form among Fellows result in a close-knit, lifelong network unique in the venture community, the Kauffman Fellows Network, that encourages collaboration, friendship, learning, mentoring, and giving back.

2020

  • Board Member

    2023

  • Board Observer

    2020 - 2023

    Excited to work with the Aerones team to bring to market the world's first robotic wind turbine inspection, maintenance and repair services. As wind power grows, driven by the growth in renewable energy needs, this little known massive industry of turbine blade maintenance and repair will be reinvented by this amazing Latvian tech team, backed by YCombinator, Change Ventures, the Sensum Group and top Silicon Valley angels.

  • Investor

    2021

    Printify is a transparent print-on-demand and dropshipping platform designed to help online merchants make more money in a simple and easy way. The platform lets anyone start a business with as little investment and risk as possible, connecting entrepreneurs with more than 90 print providers across the globe.

  • Board Observer

    2018

    Led Change Ventures investment as the first institutional investor in the company, leading the seed round. Giraffe360 provides real estate brokers and agents with a simple subscription service for creating amazing photographic and floor plan content to show off their properties. The robotic camera this team has perfected allows anyone, not just a professional photographer, to easily gather immersive photo content with 270 megapixel resolution which is automatically uploaded to the cloud and delivered by the Giraffe360 team in a URL for use on the web. The future of #PropTech here today.

  • Executive Chairman

    2017

    Interactio is the leading cloud room and multilingual meetings solution used to manage complex, hybrid and moderated meetings, as well as interpret and stream over 42,000 remote, hybrid, and on-site events since 2014. Led by a powerful mission to build bridges to limitless knowledge, we enable interpretation in an unlimited number of languages. We are humbled to - Help the democracy grow, assisting European Parliament and European Commission. - Support conferences held by Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Mary Kay, J. P. Morgan, and more! - Remain the best-rated RSI solution in the world with a Trustpilot score of 4.7 and a record of 120,000 attendees supported simultaneously.

  • Board Member

    2023

    Monetizr is the world’s most advanced in-game ad experience platform where brands reach and engage with over 300+ Million gamers. Serving the world's largest brands, including P&G powerhouses Tide, Charmin and Downy, they are giving consumer brands access to Gen Z and other audiences in gaming that are currently very hard to engage. Change Ventures led Monetizr's $4M seed round.

  • Investor

    2021

    The world's leading dog training app is a Berlin-headquartered Lithuanian-Estonian led team giving dog owners a companion app to help them build a great relationship with their pet. Unlike expensive and inconvenient dog training classes, this app provides step-by-step training for your dog with personalized feedback from professional trainers. Winner of coveted awards from both Google and Apple, Dog is used by 4M dog parents all over the world, available in 12 languages.

  • Investor

    2021

    Excited to be supporting two amazingly talented founders and their team in their journey to re-invent tutoring in schools. The service is already available in Lithuania, Poland and Greece and is growing fast, helping high school kids do better in class by participating in after school learning in group classes.

2021

  • Board Observer

    2021

    Promos is an an AI-enabled consumer analytics platform, providing brands and retailers unparalleled SKU-level consumer purchasing data.