Annija Mežgaile: The Startup Community Thinks Global From Day Zero

Annija Mežgaile is the dynamic Chief Executive Officer of TechChill, a leading startup and tech conference in Latvia. TechChill provides a vital platform for startups to connect with international investors and potential business partners, building on 14 years of being a prominent event in the Baltics. At TechChill, Mezgaile is at the forefront of observing the startup landscape, noting that successful startups often emerge from the annual Fifty Founders Battle pitch competition, with a high percentage securing further funding.

Annija's career is rooted in the creative and advertising industries. Prior to joining TechChill, she served as the Managing Director of the Latvian Art Directors Club from April 2018 to March 2021, where she was involved in organising national creative festivals, educational programmes, and collaborations.

Let's start with TechChill. It's a good warmup. What is it, if you need to explain it to somebody who is not familiar with TechChill?

TechChill has been around for 14 years, and it's driven by active ecosystem players. One of the goals is to build a community and help Latvian, Baltic startups to grow, succeed, scale, and give them a spotlight for business development.

How is it different from, let's say, Latitude59, or Startup Day?

They all are great events, and I think the cause is the same. That's why we know them well. The goal is to support the growth of the Baltic startup community, ultimately strengthening the regional economy and fostering independence and resilience.

Are you competing with each other?

Maybe, on some levels, but we still have slightly different approaches. On the venture capital side, we have good connections with Germany, UK. Of course, historically, Estonia is perhaps better connected with Finland, though Latvians also have connections. But I think there is still room for each of the events, because Startup Day, for example, has a huge and very successful expo area and involves more academia. At TechChill, we focus on practitioners and everything, including partnerships, is centered around startup founders.

So TechChill’s flagship is the conference itself?

Yes, TechChill's organisation has one flagship – the conference which serves as a platform for entrepreneurs to meet because one’s success is often based on human relations, often international relations. Scaling is borderless, even for startups from larger economies.

TechChill is a platform for startup founders to meet, for example, their future investors. Even if the founder is not looking for new investments now, it's important for them to start building these relations early on because in the future, this particular person might change their life.

What I’ve heard – not about TechChill specifically, but similar events, is that founders see private meetings as more efficient compared to these huge events where they often have to compete with hundreds of others for the attention. What’s your view on this?

Oh, I think there are many truths. What I see lately – and I have talked with serial founders who already have experience, and have been able to reach some conclusions – is that these events can provide introductions to potential investors. You meet them, add them on other channels and it will be easier to set up any future meetings. It’s true that events are not always the right place for pitching, but for many they are a good place to validate ideas.

When early-stage founders come to events like TechChill, what are they typically hoping to achieve?

When you’re only just starting out, it's so important to talk with like-minded people. Bounce ideas, reflect on failures or even get ideas to improve the service or product.

So basically what you're saying is that if you look at it as a funnel, then events are the early stage of the funnel — you validate your idea and build connections. But it’s not necessarily about pitching yet, right?

Yes, and it really does depend on what kind of stage you are in. We’ve been told that our pitch competition is quite strong. 2025 was actually the first year we decided to introduce a new criteria: in order to apply as an early-stage startup to the competition, the company has to be closely related to the Baltics. It’s not an international competition — it’s a Baltic competition.

The investors, partners come to TechChill because they are working with the Baltic region. That's why we want to provide this opportunity to Baltic startups.

What kind of feedback do you get from founders who participate?

We always ask founders, “What did you like? Can you give us some quick feedback?” And they tend to look at the experience as a whole. It’s not only about the prizes or the educational programme with bootcamps to train their skills, but also about the opportunity to pitch on the full stage. 

What’s a bigger challenge for TechChill—getting investors or getting startups?

Good question… It's the chicken and egg dilemma, that’s why we work both sides at the same time. My answer could be different if we were doing this for the first time. Now, the word spreads well. 

TechChill is a flagship event, one major highlight of the year. But what happens during the other 364 days? Events take one day, but the cycle is much longer. Isn’t that a challenge?

Oh, it’s definitely a challenge. You see income during one or two months per year — and this is one highlight, but if something goes wrong… It’s like an athlete preparing for the Olympics every four years — they wake up with a headache, and that's it. It’s over.

How do you manage to keep the cycle going — keeping attention on the event and maintaining connections with both investors and startups?

Since we've been around for more than a decade, it has changed over the years. During the year, we think about how to stay connected with the community. We also collaborate with the Latvian Investment and Development Agency or the Riga City Council to work on smaller events or gatherings.

Most people don’t understand how it’s possible to raise money out of nothing.

We have been more involved on behalf of the community — building better relationships with government people. Because it’s important to help our society understand the industry better. Most people don’t understand how it’s possible to raise money out of nothing. We try to explain it in a simple way and keep the conversation going with the society, mainstream media, and government people. It’s also the way to get more awareness for further growth.

How do you keep relationships fresh with investors and startups — especially since there’s a lot of competition for attention?

We are quite well connected with local and international media. It’s a combination of different small things: we often travel to international events, meet communities and people, and invite them to Latvia. We build this net of connections throughout Europe with people who help us create better stage content. You meet someone in Malta, another person in Berlin — you just have to be open.

All these activities need to have a structure. First, when you travel, you must reconnect on LinkedIn within the first week when you still remember each other. Then, if it’s someone really interesting, we have a shared database for these leads.

For example, just two hours ago I met a really interesting guy from Canada who's working on quantum computing and is trying to build collaboration between Canada and the Baltics. Very cool future tech project – I wrote his name down immediately.

During COVID, there was a time when it felt like personal meetings were no longer needed. Everything was virtual. But now we’re hearing, “go back to the office, meet people.” What’s your experience? As a leader, how important is it to go out and meet people in person to build your network and gather information?

If it’s possible, we try to meet in person. But of course, since we work with so many international contacts, it’s just part of the deal to be on video calls. Still, building connections in real life—you remember the person better, you get more of a personal attachment. You even feel more responsible for them, for whatever they wished or asked.

How much effort do you put into direct selling? Reaching out to people and convincing them to buy tickets?

With investors? Quite a lot. It’s a very direct approach. That’s why my colleague’s title is Investor Relations. Investors like to be approached personally—maybe via a personal email, maybe even via call.

Startups are different. Our leverage is that our brand is quite well-known hence we mostly reach out to them in bulk, or we build new connections at other events.

With both, the challenge is how to be top of mind at the right time. Not all the time, but the right time. And in order to be top of mind at the right time, you have to do the work beforehand. They have to notice you, hear about you, so that when the event is approaching, they’re like, “Okay, right. I heard this and that about TechChill.”

TechChill 2025 came together with the help of 120+ volunteers

What's the biggest challenge for you right now, preparing for the next edition? Among the many challenges, what’s number one?

I think what we’re actually discussing right now is how to be more efficient as a team. How to be more efficient with processes. How we build the agenda, how we approach startups or investors. Can we define our focus better? Can we understand the audience better? Can we deliver the message better? These are all steps of efficiency. Our core team is around seven people. But then, of course, when the event is closer, there’s a production house.

If you compare this with the advertising community you were part of—what's the biggest difference?

Focusing on the Baltic community here, I’d say the startup community thinks global very fast, from day zero. It doesn’t matter whether they’re Estonians or Latvians or Lithuanians. That’s a big mindset switch.

A lot of companies start already with markets outside Latvia. They don’t even challenge the local market because the product might not have a future here due to the lack of clients. Advertising still tends to be too local.

Why is that? There have been some attempts to break out.

One theory is that the main agencies are doing okay business-wise. The owners are happy with the status quo. Going to the next level requires huge effort and risk, maybe they feel it’s not worth it?

Startups have nothing to lose and everything to win.

Especially young founders—fresh out of college or high school. They don’t have a house, a family, a car nor a summer house… They have nothing to lose and everything to win.

The next TechChill will take place March 11 - 13, 2026, Riga, Latvia.