SpringWater Launches as Entrepreneur-Led SaaS Acquirer, Announces First Acquisition of FirstPromoter
Vilnius — September 4, 2025 — SpringWater, an entrepreneur-led investment firm focused on acquiring and scaling founder-led SaaS businesses, announced its official launch today. The firm is backed by bootstrapped entrepreneurs who have built global category leaders like Hostinger, WebPros, Contabo, as well as NordVPN, Oxylabs, nexos.ai (the Tesonet group).
SpringWater targets product-led SaaS businesses with €1–10M ARR that have the potential to become global category leaders. The firm invests long-term capital without forced exits, focusing instead on partnering with founders to preserve their legacy while unlocking new growth levers.
SpringWater was initiated by Arnas Stuopelis, Co-founder and Chairman of the Board at Hostinger, which is known for scaling from zero to more than €180M in revenue in 2024, serving 3.5+ million customers in 150+ countries, with sustained 60%+ annual growth, without raising any external capital.
The firm is led by Justas Paulauskas, who brings 15 years of financial expertise and global transaction experience. Justas has supported entrepreneurs, management teams and investors on acquisitions, growth initiatives, capital raises and complex ownership transitions — helping them navigate some of their most important milestones.
Left to right: Justinas Pagirys (Head of Growth), Andrius Putna (CTO), Austeja Perednyte (Investment Analyst), Arnas Stuopelis (Chairman), Olga Kuzminskaja (Operations and Origination Executive), Justas Paulauskas (CEO).
First Acquisition: FirstPromoter
SpringWater also announced its first portfolio company: FirstPromoter, a leading affiliate marketing platform for subscription-based businesses. Founded in 2017 by Virgil Cioaca, FirstPromoter powers the affiliate programs of 2,000+ SaaS companies worldwide and is one of the leaders in its segment, achieving strong profitability and efficient growth.
FirstPromoter enables businesses to accelerate growth through affiliate and referral marketing by automating referral tracking, commission payouts, fraud prevention and reporting. With seamless integrations with top-tier billing platforms, it provides companies with an efficient and scalable solution to grow their business.
“We are excited for FirstPromoter to find a new home with SpringWater,” said Cioaca. “The product has matured strongly, and with SpringWater’s expertise and network, we now have the best support to scale across global markets.”
“We’re thrilled to announce our first investment in FirstPromoter — a perfect example of the category-leading SaaS tools we’re looking to back and scale,” said Paulauskas. “Many SaaS founders grow to €1–10M ARR entirely bootstrapped — reaching product-market fit with lean operations and primarily through word of mouth. But at some stage, they hit a ceiling: limited resources, bandwidth or access to the right talent to break through. SpringWater helps break those limits. We bring deep operating know-how, hands-on scaling experience and a long-term mindset to help SaaS founders go further with confidence”.
Founder-First Investment Platform
SpringWater’s entrepreneur-led model combines the experience of founders who have scaled global bootstrapped companies with a network of 3,000+ experts across marketing, AI, product, and go-to-market strategy. By aligning with founder ambitions and providing patient capital, the firm enables SaaS companies to scale sustainably.
SpringWater is actively pursuing further acquisitions across Europe and North America and is looking to hire for key positions both within its portfolio and internally in the coming months.