This autumn, Vilnius University (VU) is launching a new cycle of the VU TechHub Pre-Accelerator programme, inviting students from all VU faculties and units to gain hands-on experience of building a startup. The 20-week programme is open to students at different starting points: those who already have an idea and a team, those with an idea but still looking for teammates, and those keen to join a startup being developed by other participants.
Over the course of the programme, participants will work through the key steps in developing an early-stage startup, from identifying business opportunities and forming a team to validating a problem and proposed solution, developing a minimum viable product (MVP), analysing the market, shaping a business model, and planning marketing and sales. Applications for the VU TechHub Pre-Accelerator are open until 12 October.
From forming a team to building a startup
The 20-week programme consists of two main stages: ‘Founder Mindset & Teaming’ and ‘Startup Building’.
The first stage focuses on identifying business opportunities, developing the skills needed to become a startup founder, and forming a team. Participants will have the chance to better understand their role within a team, get to know one another, and form teams for further work.
During the second stage, teams will work on specific business ideas – they will identify and validate a problem, develop an MVP, analyse the market and the competitive landscape, test their solution with potential customers, develop a business model, prepare marketing, sales, and financial plans, and put together a pitch for prospective investors.
The programme is practice-oriented – through both lectures and workshops, participants will work with real-world business scenarios and immediately apply the knowledge and tools they acquire to developing their own business ideas
Experienced entrepreneurs and experts will support participants throughout the programme, sharing their experience and offering practical feedback as teams move through the different stages of building a startup.
From an initial idea to a growing business
Ideas first conceived or developed during the VU TechHub Pre-Accelerator have gone on to become growing businesses. To date, 183 startups have completed the programme, and around 40% of them generate revenue. Between 2023 and 2025, they generated more than €38 million in combined revenue and paid approximately €3.7 million in taxes.
Startups that have emerged from or developed through VU TechHub include ‘Corepetitus’, ‘BBright’, ‘Persikas AI’, ‘Inobiostar’, ‘Hoperfy’, ‘Micapass’, and many others.
However, the outcome of the pre-accelerator is not always the same business idea a participant started with. The knowledge, experience, and connections gained can also provide a foundation for businesses they create later.
One such example is ‘Mr. Soda’ (‘InSoda’). Its founder, Žydrūnas Kondrotas, joined the VU TechHub Pre-Accelerator with an entirely different idea, ‘BEST4TRIP’. He later took his business ambitions in a new direction, creating ‘Mr. Soda’.
‘A good idea alone is not enough to build a business. You need to understand what real problem it solves, test the solution with potential customers, find a business model that works and, above all, be willing to adapt your original idea. At the VU TechHub Pre-Accelerator, we create an environment where ideas can be both nurtured and critically tested. Even if the initial idea never develops into a business, the journey doesn’t end there: the experience gained often lays the groundwork for another idea and a new venture,’ said Aurelija Šilinskaitė, Head of the VU TechHub Pre-Accelerator programme.
The programme can count towards a professional internship
For first- to third-year students on certain Bachelor’s programmes at the VU Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, participation in the VU TechHub Pre-Accelerator may be recognised as a professional internship, provided the requirements specified by their degree programme are met.
Students are advised to check the specific conditions for internship recognition with their degree programme in advance.
VU TechHub Pre-Accelerator 2026–2027
Application deadline: 12 October 2026. Apply here: https://tinyurl.com/3pbvaesc.
Online information session: 8 October at 17:00. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/tuy3v8s8.
More information can be found here: https://www.techhub.vu.lt/.