Latvian company “THEO Growth” is developing an artificial intelligence solution that helps businesses assess competitors and define their brand positioning. Although the current version of the product has only recently entered the market, it is already being used by its first international clients, including one of the leading creative agencies in the Baltics, “MAGIC Agency”. The company’s potential has also been recognised by investors — at the TechChill technology conference last year, it attracted investments of more than EUR 430,000.
In planning its further development, the company is also making use of support instruments provided by the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA). Currently, “THEO Growth” participates in the LIAA business incubation programme at its Ventspils office, and has previously received startup support in the form of tax relief, which helped cover the costs of highly qualified specialists during the product development phase.
“In this field, you cannot afford to build your team on the cheapest available resources. Developing AI solutions requires highly qualified people, and these are expensive specialists. The tax relief gave us a very important opportunity to retain our team and continue experimenting,” says company CEO Guntis Čoders.
He acknowledges that in the early stages of the company’s development, using state support instruments was not always straightforward, as the product focus changed very rapidly. “In a startup, things can change very quickly — by the time you prepare an application, within a month the product direction or priorities may already be different. In our case, this was one of the reasons why we could not initially use all available instruments as actively as we would have liked,” he explains.
G. Čoders overall evaluates cooperation with LIAA positively, especially highlighting the human interaction and the diversity of available support. At the same time, working in the field of technology and artificial intelligence, he also sees several areas where state systems could become more flexible and digitally efficient. “Compared to the time when I managed an incubator myself, a lot has improved. But when working with IT and AI solutions, you clearly see how many processes could still be simplified,” says the CEO.
One of the most common challenges, in his view, is the repeated request for the same information at different stages of the application process. “A lot of information about a company is already known in the systems, but often it has to be re-entered again. If a company reapplies for support, it would be logical to indicate only what has changed, rather than restarting the entire process from scratch,” he says.
He also criticises certain reporting processes where the company’s CEO is required to submit highly specific financial information. “Sometimes it creates an absurd situation — as a CEO, I have to provide data that, in detail, can almost only be explained by an accountant. This leads to repeatedly forwarding information, correcting it, and explaining the same things multiple times,” he says.
Despite this, “THEO Growth” plans to continue using state support instruments, as the availability of such support is essential for the company’s development.
The article was prepared within the project “Development of Innovative Entrepreneurship for SMEs”, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Union.
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