This article was published on July 2, 2015

Catch up with June’s tech news from Eastern Europe


Catch up with June’s tech news from Eastern Europe

The first month of summer has been quite busy for entrepreneurs and other tech industry players in Eastern Europe: we’ve tracked a hundred-odd news and feature stories coming from the region and selected the most significant ones. Here they are, compiled in a handy round-up to allow you to stay up to date with what’s going on in the region.

If you think something is missing, or would like to draw our attention to an important story, feel free to ping the author on Twitter (@shlema) or by e-mail at [email protected].

Startups, funds, accelerators

Crowdfunding

  • Croatian startup Baggizmo has hit its goal in a $35,000 Kickstarter campaign for its “only everyday carry bag you will ever need”
  • Prague-based designer Anna Maresova has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a highly advanced pleasure device called Whoop.De.Doo
  • Slovak startup CulCharge has hit its initial goal of $60,000 in an Indiegogo campaign for “the smallest wearable 3-in-1 power bank”
  • Ukrainian-Polish startup Ecois.me has hit its goal on IGG to fund an intelligent energy monitoring system
  • Ukrainian smartphone flash iblazr² got funded on Kickstarter in just three days

Funding deals and M&A

Laws and governments

  • CzechInvest and Invest Macedonia have been rewarded as the top national agencies in Eastern Europe
  • A major cybercriminal group has been taken down in Ukraine by a team of investigators and judicial authorities from six different European countries
  • Ukrainian government has publicly called PayPal to make service fully available in the country
  • Russian antitrust authorities held a scheduled session on the Google case on June 1, which resulted in adding an accusation of abusing its dominant position on the Russian market. The next session will be held in July
  • Switzerland has allocated some $4.6 million to help establish e-government in Ukraine
  • U.S. authorities have allowed Apple and Google, as well as other companies, to continue services to Crimea without violating the sanctions
  • Russian communications oversight authority has put Facebook, Twitter and Google on notice
  • Samsung has allegedly agreed to comply with Russia’s data-localization law
  • Russia has copied EU commissars with own right to be forgotten law
  • MI6 has pulled spies out of ‘hostile countries’ after Russia and China cracked encrypted files leaked by fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden
  • Russia and Iraq will develop cooperation in the fields of IT and telecommunications
  • Wayback Machine’s 485 billion web pages have been blocked by Russian government order
  • Russian officials consider switching to YotaPhone 2 smartphones running Sailfish instead of Android
  • Booking.com has confirmed commitment to “important Russian market,” getting prepared to comply with personal data storage law

In other news

  • Polish police have shut down an online piracy network and published a video of what they found
  • Kyiv has become the fifth city in the world to let MasterCard holders pay for subway rides with cards that have chips using PayPass technology
  • Russian internet giant Yandex has launched a new music streaming service, Yandex.Radio – a jukebox for users in the country who want to listen to pre-programmed music stations
  • Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has opened a Russian company and teamed up with Skolkovo
  • Russia’s Yota Devices has announced its first $640 tablet that sports two screens and is able to charge a YotaPhone smartphone
  • Russia-based uCoz has launched uKit, a website creation platform “designed with even the least tech-savvy user in mind”
  • Panasonic has opened its R&D center in Skolkovo, the international tech hub under completion on the outskirts of Moscow
  • Yandex has protested against Russian ‘Right to be forgotten’ Internet bill and said it violates constitutional freedoms
  • Hackers have breached Polish airline LOT’s systems, grounding 1,400 passengers
  • Russian online retailer Ozon will begin hosting merchants from China and Europe this year to tap booming cross-border trade
  • China’s largest online retailer JD.com has launched Russian site as first step to global expansion
  • Russia’s e-commerce giant Ulmart has confirmed IPO plans in 2016, considers private equity deal in late 2015
  • According to Yandex, bank cards dominate payments in most Russian websites while PayPal lags far behind
  • Russia’s Skolkovo Foundation is to expand its tech city with €200 million BioCity to be build by Finland’s Turku Science Park Oy

Good (long) reads from around the Web

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