Estonian Ambassador Kristjan Prikk would love to start coming to Atlanta regularly to showcase all that his Baltic nation has to offer for investors and tech companies.
The country of 1.3 million has the world’s second-highest per capita number of unicorns (private startups with a valuation of more than $1 billion), and it’s a well-known innovator in the realm of e-governance. Atlanta firms would do well to take a look, Mr. Prikk says.
“I would absolutely love to reach to the point where maybe my next visit can be with some companies bringing bring them over and seeking out new business opportunities,” the ambassador told Global Atlanta in an interview at the Metro Atlanta Chamber.
Unfortunately, Russia invaded Ukraine just before his first visit to Atlanta exactly two years ago, and it continued to drag on as he returned this week for an independence celebration with the Estonian community, university lectures and talks and a meeting with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
A security and defense expert, Mr. Prikk is well suited to outlining the view from the Baltics, where the threat of invasion from neighboring Russia is existential and inclusion in the NATO alliance invaluable, as the ambassador explained in a previous Global Atlanta interview.
Amid flagging support for the war in the U.S. Congress and a stalemate on the front lines in Ukraine’s east, Mr. Prikk suggested that Western countries have been a bit too timid in their backing of Ukraine, cowed by Russia’s saber-rattling.
“We’re certainly of the view that this fear of escalation is mostly something that has been instilled in us by the Russians,” Mr. Prikk said. “The Russians want us to get paralyzed; they want us to avoid doing the right thing.”
As funding fades, Ukrainian troops are increasingly outgunned, with massive disparities in artillery shells making it difficult for Ukraine to advance or even hold territory. The irony, Mr. Prikk said, is that during the war, when Western countries have finally come through with weapons that Russia has insisted would constitute escalation — like tanks, HIMARs and patriot air defense systems — the threats were proven to be bluffs.
“Short of nuclear and biological weapons, there is no other domain or weapons that the Russians can further escalate with. In the very beginning of the war, they have escalated all the way up. Pretty much every week, if not every day, they have there are attacks against civilian infrastructure. Whether it’s energy infrastructure, residential buildings, administrative buildings — they’ve done it,” he said, adding that there have been credible reports of chemical weapon use throughout the conflict.
When French President Emmanuel Macron suggested NATO could put troops on the ground in Ukraine this month, Russian leader Vladimir Putin warned again that this could lead to a nuclear showdown.
But Mr. Prikk doesn’t see any advantage Russia could gain from this, especially since China has warned against the use of nukes, and it wouldn’t change conditions on the ground much anyway, he said.
“I would argue that the credibility of their potential use of even tactical nuclear weapons has gone down during this war,” Mr. Prikk said, casting doubt on the military utility of such a strike. “And certainly there is absolutely no political utility — or rather it’s a waste.”
He said NATO needs to remain firm and credible rather than being splintered by Putin’s threats.
“Putin is not suicidal, so we have to make sure that he understands that an attack against NATO is not just a red line. It’s the red line,” Mr. Prikk said. “No one has suggested Ukrainians or anyone else, marching to the Red Square. It’s about Russia going back to Russia. And this is not a controversial, proposal, for a country to go back to its internationally recognized borders and leave another independent country. So we absolutely don’t buy into the escalation argument, and we also suggest everyone else not be too scared of what the Russians say.”
Estonia is practicing what it preaches, Mr. Prikk said, accepting Ukrainian refugees amounting to 6 percent of its population, boosting defense spending to well above NATO’s agreed-upon thresholds and pledging an additional 0.25 percent of its GDP to arm Ukraine.
Nothing short of the post-World War II security architecture is at stake in this conflict— with import for the investments that he said.
“If this crashes, if this is shattered, these effects — military, political but also economic effects — will not only be limited to to Europe or the transatlantic space. Europe and the U.S. have been built up such positive interdependencies over the past decades, but these interdependencies have been very much dependent on the mutual understanding that the security is there and that we can rely on each other. If this understanding vanishes, then I’m unhappy to say that but we will see major realignment and different decisions regarding energy, regarding investment regarding trade relationships.”
That’s his message to both parties of U.S. Congress, where a subset of House Republicans has continued to question aid to Ukraine, delaying a vote on a package passed in the Senate.
“Even today there is a majority support to continue on giving aid to Ukraine. But both parties’ representatives often need to hear from European countries need to augment their own arguments,” he said.
Security as a Business Opportunity
Ironically, the ongoing specter of war is raising the stock of Estonian startups, who are well-versed in cybersecurity and are now producing innovations in the defense sector.
With half of Estonia’s population (all men) conscripted into the armed forces at some point, many come out with a keen understanding of challenges facing the country and are now coming up with solutions. The “Startup Nation” of Israel, where required military service has been credited with driving innovation, is a model for this approach, Mr. Prikk said.
“With the Ukraine war, people in Estonia, as well as outside, have more appreciation of national security as almost like a public good, something that everyone needs to pursue their dreams, to do their business.”
That means firms from Estonia, with its longstanding focus on defense, are getting a second look from investors, especially as many of their solutions are being tested in Ukraine’s operational arena, Mr. Prikk said.
Estonia’s star in the startup space first rose in 2001, when Ebay bought Estonia-founded messaging and telephony app Skype for $2.6 billion. It was a large sum, but more importantly, it put Estonia on the map.
“I think money was less important than the practical experience and the taste of success — and as a sign of trust in Estonian future and in Estonian entrepreneurship. Rather than taking their capital to some other countries or buying an island in the Caribbean, they decided to reinvest it in Estonia.”
Many current-day founders came out of Skype, with some building the 10 unicorn companies that Estonia has produced to date, from digital identification service ID.me to ridesharing app Bolt (formerly Taxify), cross-border money movement firm TransferWise (now Wise), gaming software firm Playtech and Veriff, another authentication firm. Many on the list dovetail with Atlanta’s strengths in fintech and cybersecurity.
In the pure defense sector, Mr. Prikk said Estonian firms do well, as they understand the barriers to entry and the high bar for a disruptive solution — both in Estonia and around the world.
“It’s really difficult to penetrate the well-established markets unless you have something to offer that is not there yet. This is the way our companies have been able to be quite successful in some niche sectors,” he said.
He pointed to Milrem Robotics, a provider of unmanned tanks and emergency rescue vehicles, which have seen combat in Ukraine, as well as Estonian participation in similar initiatives to drive unmanned patrols of the Baltic coast.
While he welcomed NATO’s decision to establish the DIANA accelerator in London focused on scaling up solutions geared toward future war fighters, he said the private sector is also seeing the value in defense-related investments.
“The (venture capital) sector and startups have been somewhat hesitant, quite often, to deal with defense matters. But what we certainly see, absolutely in Estonia but also in other countries including the U.S., is that with all this craziness around us, the startup and VC sector is actually becoming more, let’s say, appreciative of the opportunities out there and the needs of the national defense and security.”
Mr. Prikk was unable to visit U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Gordon in Augusta on this trip, but he hopes to be back in Atlanta to pursue further tech and defense connections.
“Atlanta certainly is one of the cities where things happen, and therefore it makes sense to come here, not just once but rather regularly to check in,” he said.
Estonia is represented in Atlanta by Honorary Consul Aadu Allpere. The company’s investment, tourism and trade agency is Enterprise Estonia, which has offices in New York and San Francisco.
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