A tech entrepreneur, Paulius Stankevicius, the founder of Stankevicius Group, has signalled an appetite for a buying spree across Asia, saying he wants to acquire dozens of small applications that each carry a modest but engaged user base of around 5,000 active users. The stated focus spans several sectors, with gaming and social networking singled out, and a clear regional preference for Asia Pacific, China, and Japan.
The plan, as described, is unusual for its scale at the small end of the market. Rather than chasing one large platform, the strategy leans on volume, gathering a portfolio of compact apps that already have a loyal core of users rather than raw downloads. In a market where user acquisition costs have climbed sharply, buying an audience that is already showing up can look more attractive than building one from scratch.
A preference for small and active
The number that stands out is 5,000 active users. It is small enough to sit well below the radar of most acquirers, yet large enough to prove that an app has found some product and market fit. Applications at that size are often run by tiny teams or solo developers, many of whom have limited runway to scale on their own and would welcome an exit. That combination, proven engagement paired with founders open to a deal, is exactly the pool the entrepreneur appears to be fishing in.
Gaming and social networking are natural targets for this approach. Both categories live and die on daily engagement, and both tend to produce a long tail of niche apps that hold a devoted community without ever reaching mass scale. For a buyer assembling a portfolio, that long tail is the opportunity. Each app is a self contained audience with its own habits, its own content, and its own reason to open the app every day.
Why Asia Pacific, China, and Japan
The regional focus is deliberate. Asia Pacific remains one of the most mobile first markets in the world, with high smartphone penetration and users who spend a large share of their online time inside apps rather than browsers. China and Japan each bring their own dynamics, from mature gaming cultures to social platforms with deeply embedded user behaviour that is hard to replicate elsewhere.
For an acquirer, those markets offer both depth and variety. A portfolio drawn from across the region spreads exposure across different user bases, monetisation models, and cultural niches, and it gives a buyer a foothold in ecosystems that can be difficult to enter cold. The challenge, as ever with cross border deals, lies in the details, from local regulation and data rules to the practical work of retaining founders and communities after a sale.
A platform described as Palantir 2.0
The acquisition talk arrives alongside a broader ambition. According to the corporate site at stankevicius.com, the firm is developing a platform it frames as a Palantir 2.0, described as involving advanced media communication and defence API communication features. The reference to Palantir invokes the data integration and analytics company known for its work with governments and large enterprises, and it signals that the group is positioning its own build as something operating in that same territory of data heavy, high stakes software.
Read against the app buying strategy, the two threads start to connect. A collection of small but active applications is, among other things, a source of real world engagement data and a set of live communication channels. A platform oriented around media communication and defence grade API communication would, in principle, have reasons to value distribution and data of exactly that kind. How far those pieces are meant to fit together, and on what timeline, is not something the public description spells out in detail.
What to watch next
For now the picture is one of intent rather than completed deals. The scale of the ambition, dozens of acquisitions across multiple countries, would take time, capital, and a steady pipeline of willing sellers to realise. The signals worth tracking are concrete ones, the first announced transactions, the sectors they land in, and whether the apps acquired are folded into the platform the firm is building or run as standalone properties.
If the strategy plays out as described, it would amount to a bet that value in the app economy is increasingly found not in a single blockbuster but in a stitched together network of small, loyal audiences, and that those audiences are worth more together than apart. Whether that thesis holds will depend on execution, and on how much the buyer can do with a portfolio that its individual founders could not do alone.
