Vilnius is only a three-hour flight from most European capitals. Currently, more than 15 airlines offer direct flights to over 40 destinations from Vilnius International Airport.

Lithuania’s rail network comprises intercity trains that are affordable and comfortable. Some have coffee machines, WiFi and convenient electrical outlets.

The railway station is just outside the old town in a district filled with some of the city’s most popular restaurants and bars.

Next to Vilnius Railway Station, Vilnius Central Bus Station connects to both domestic and international destinations.

Buses, trolleybuses and CycloCity bikes are the most common forms of public transport in Vilnius.

Travellers can purchase a Vilnian Card (Vilniečio kortelė) – a prepaid travel card that can be used on all public transport. Otherwise, public transport users can download the m.Ticket mobile app, which allows them to purchase tickets and view public transport schedules.

Vilnius also offers car-sharing options, and is ranked first in Europe in terms of shared cars per capita. Platforms like Spark make Lithuania’s capital one of the few cities where an electric car can be rented via a sharing platform. It facilitates mobility in and around the city and helps reduce the total number of cars on the road.

— Vilnius University – the oldest and largest Lithuanian higher education institution conducting research in biotechnology, molecular biology, chemistry, photonics, semiconductors and material science.

— Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) is one of the biggest research universities in Lithuania with a focus on technologies and engineering, and a strong emphasis on university business cooperation.

— Sauletekis Valley, consists of the Joint Life Science Centre, the Centre for Physical Science and Technology, and the Multi- Functional Laser Facility.

— Santara Science Valley, is home to the Information Technology Open Access Centre, the Open Access Centre for Nature Research, the Joint Centre of Innovative Medicine, four private R&D facilities, and three GMP- compliant pharma plants.

Vilnius is home to some of the country’s best universities, and has a talent pool with the highest ICT literacy of any in the EU, along with almost 100% English proficiency among young professionals. And with talent saturation levels that are significantly lower than comparable European cities, there is plenty of room for business to grow.

The city was ranked third in CEE for quality of maths and science education (Source: WEF Global Competitiveness Report, 2014-2015). Vilnius has the highest ICT literacy in the EU – 97% of students obtain ICT skills in secondary schools (Source: Digital Agenda for Europe).

84% of young professionals in Vilnius speak English (Source: Population Census, 2011).

And the city is ranked 7th for people speaking at least two foreign languages (Source: European Commission, Europeans and Their Languages, 2012).

Vilnius has 17 co-working spaces for startups, digital nomads, freelancers and innovators. The biggest co-working spaces are Vilnius Tech Park and Rise Vilnius. The prices range from 69 EUR to 300 EUR per month, depending on the chosen package.

The City of Vilnius is integrating a policy of open data aimed at making life in the capital easier for residents and businesses. Municipal data pertaining to finances, public procurement, real estate, transport and much more is readily available to the public, and authorities to actively engage local tech talent to help create even more smart solutions for the city.

The Municipality of Vilnius teams up with the tech and startup communities to help accelerate its smart city ambitions in different forms, from inspiring groups of activists to setting up hackathons, such as Hack4Vilnius.

Code for Vilnius’ projects are open source and freely available on Github.

— Go Vilnius works with Invest Lithuania to offer support and incentives to companies at the national level; Enterprise Lithuania, can help entrepreneurs find reliable business partners in Lithuania; and Startup Lithuania, helps startups get off the ground and succeed.

— The co-investment fund Koinvesticinis Fondas is an umbrella fund designed to encourage further development of the Lithuanian venture capital community and co-invests in SMEs benefiting the country.

— Practica Capital invests in early- stage ventures and high growth SMEs with an ambition to become regional, continental and global players while leading their national markets.

— Startup.LT is an execution platform for startups fuelled by Practica Capital.

— Circle Venture provides seed funding and angel capital to early stage high potential startup companies in exchange for minority ownership equity.

— Contrarian Ventures is a hands-on early stage venture capital firm that invests in ground-breaking companies with ambitious founders in close partnership with large corporations.

— Blue Lime Labs provides pre-seed funding, mentorship, and hands- on experience in developing ideas.

— The Open Circle Capital Fund is run by an international team of partners with a track record of investments in nearly 100 technology companies in both Europe and the United States.

— StartupHighway is a Baltic startup accelerator and an early seed stage fund.

— Karma Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm, specialising in late seed and A-round investments in Europe’s most promising tech startups.

— Lithuanian Business Angel Network (LitBAN) fosters business angel activity through communication, events, networking, and syndication of deals both locally and across the Nordics by uniting wealthy individuals, successful entrepreneurs and executives who are curious about angel investing activities and are interesting in sharing their knowledge and network with new entrepreneurs.

— IMI VC is a private venture company with the focus on investing in IT companies in AI, mobile, social and gaming spheres.

— LitCapital Asset Management UAB is an independent professional private equity fund management company.

— Nextury Ventures is a venture-3.0- style incubator, funding startups around the hottest Silicon Valley tech ideas.