Tech news from Eastern Europe: Your roundup for August

Another month is almost gone, and it’s time to take look at what’s happened on the Eastern European tech scene in recent weeks.

We’ve compiled the most important headlines from this part of the world into a handy round-up to make sure you’re up to speed with the recent developments.

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, VCs, accelerators

• Lithuania has celebrated International Startup Day
• Russian news aggregator Anews has launched its app in Brazil
• Ukrainian Deco.agency has released Mistape, a free WordPress plugin that allows readers to point at spelling and other mistakes on websites
• Ukrainian students have launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise $200,000 for a smart wallet
• Startup Sauna is coming to Budapest
• Teams from Hungary and Russia won prizes in Microsoft Imagine Cup
• Garage48, Eesti Telekom and Startup Wise Guys have partnered to launch an acceleration program called VUNK for telecom startups
• Ukraine-founded startup CheckiO has launched its new coding game Empire of Code
• Polish Kontakt.io has released a new Admin App for Android, allowing to manage and update iBeacons and Eddystones
• Ukrainian startup Themler claims to be world’s first visual web design environment for WordPress, Magento, Joomla and Drupal
• Ukrainian business accelerator GrowthUP ready to cooperate with Baltic startups
• Pioneers of the Balkans is a new startup competition that will take place this fall in Zagreb and Belgrade
• Ukrainian web studio 908 has launched sticker marketplace service Stickerpipe
• Latvian Swipe has launched to be easier than PayPal and faster than banks
• Kwambio’s 3D file platform has officially launched with hundreds of beautiful 3D designs
• Russian Handy.com copycat Qlean wants to clean Asia
• Startup Sauna is coming to Riga
• DST Global has raised $1.7 billion to launch its fifth fund – without Russian money
• Livonia Partners Fund I, a pan-Baltic private equity fund, has held its first close at €70 million
• Russian VC fund Starta Capital has announced the launch of a new office and startup accelerator in the US
• All six projects at LatBAN July pitch session have attracted investor interest
• Agro tech has arrived at Russia’s Skolkovo
• Russian venture fund ABRT has ceased to invest in startups
• Russia’s Healbe has begun selling its controversial smart wristband GoBe
• Latvian Files.fm has brought its total capital to €1 million

Funding deals and M&A

• Slovakia-founded online paywall builder Piano Media has merged with Tinypass
• Polish startup Sher.ly has attracted 1 million zloty (about €240,000) in funding
• Russian startup TakeBus has raised some €43,000 in funding from Moscow Seed Fund
• Ukrainian startup Galactic Exchange has secured seed funding in Silicon Valley in one week to “simplify big data”
• Russian 3D modelling app maker GeoCV has secured $1.15 million for sales tests in Russian and US markets
• In-app advertising platform AdtoApp founded by Russian entrepreneur Nikolay Evdokimov has raised $6 million in funding from Run Capital
• Oracle has acquired Ukrainian-born startup Maxymiser
• Russian-born startup Api.ai has landed $3 million in funding
• Ukrainian investment firm CIG has poured $1 million in Israeli mobile platform for kids KIDO’Z
• Russia’s Grishin Robotics has participated in $13 million Series B funding round for American 3D sensing hardware and software maker Occipital, as well as $26 million round for Super Evil Megacorp
• Russian billionaire Yuri Milner has participated in $90 million funding round for Indian health search portal Practo
• Russian-born InVenture Partners has invested $5 million in US telemedicine startup American Well
• Russian investor Yuri Milner has participated in a $100 million funding round for Carbon 3D
• Kirill Podolskiy, founder of Russia’s Anywayanyday, will invest $3 million in Myhomeday.com together with the ex-mayor of Moscow Vladimir Silkin
• Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has invested $10 million in Israeli startup Driveway, which earlier attracted $1.6 million from other Russian investors
• Russian HR website JungleJobs has attracted $500,000 in funding from Impulse VC and TheUntitled
• Russian-born venture firm Flint Capital has led a $5 million funding round for Mobee
• Ukraine-based TA Ventures took part  in a €2.3 million funding round for Stylelounge, a German metasearch engine for clothing and lifestyle products
• Prague-founded TeskaLabs has secured €337,000 in pre-seed funding

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Laws and governments

• Ukrainian hackers have helped stock traders make $100m with stolen press releases
• Russia banned one page of Reddit, which means that about 30% users were unable to access the site at all, but lifted the ban next day
• Ukrainian-born ZeoBIT will pay $2 million in compensations and attorney fees for misleading advertising of its product, security and performance program MacKeeper
• Wroclaw may be the first Polish city to implement rentable municipal electric vehicles
• Russia reportedly launched cyberattack against Pentagon email system in July
• Estonian hacker space Garage48 will host an e-residency hackathon supported by the government
• Ban Windows 10 in government, says top Russian politician over privacy fears
• Autodesk has signed a cooperation agreement with Skolkovo to potentially provide software support to resident startups and Skoltech students
• Lithuania plans to boost investment with immigration streamlining
• Russia considers banning gay-themed emojis under ‘propaganda laws’
• Russian government-backed hackers who penetrated high-profile U.S. government and defense industry computers this year used a method combining Twitter with data hidden in seemingly benign photographs
• Russian lawmakers want the government to develop an automated system for hunting Internet ‘trolls’
• Russia’s pro-Putin “troll factory” has been ruled to pay damages to ex-worker: one rouble
• There’s now a Russian video game where you can save Western food imports from destruction
• Russian Internet regulator has blocked and unblocked Wikipedia over an article describing a form of cannabis known as Charas

In other news

• One the biggest startup conferences in Ukraine, IDCEE, has been cancelled for 2015
• Yandex has launched a multifunctional app for users with low-budget Android smartphones in Russia
• LOT, the official Polish air carrier, is now accepting bitcoin
• Uber launched water taxi service in Saint Petersburg for two days
• Kaspersky has denied the accusations in creating fake malware, saying that the Reuters report does not contain ‘a shred of evidence’
• Russia’s Skolkovo has teamed up with Panasonic and KAMAZ in search for battery breakthrough
• Projects from Lithuania, Bosnia, and Russia have made it to the finals of Google’s annual Science Fair
• Gennady Korotkevich from Belarus has won Google Code Jam for the second time in a row
• Islamic State has released a Russian-language propaganda app for Android
• Romanian antivirus firm BitDefender has admitted a leak of customer data, as the hacker claims that stolen passwords are unencrypted
• Russian-made e-ink YotaPhone 2 is no longer coming to the US. In related news, Singapore-based Hi-P, which manufactures YotaPhone 2, takes Yota Devices to court over refusal to take delivery of smartphones
• JD.com has inked a deal with Russian Post and considers selling Russian goods to Chinese consumers
• Ukrainian outsourcing software development company SpeedFlow has announced a relocation to Bulgaria
• Yandex has relaunched its mobile analytics platform with detailed ad tracking
• Rafal Plutecki has become the head of Google Campus in Warsaw
• Goldman Sachs to launch technology center in Poland
• Amazon has raised the wages of the 6,000 workers at its two logistics centers in Western Poland. However, problems for the retail giant remain

Good (long) reads from around the Web

• 4 Polish Biotech Startups that Want to Improve Your Health
• The Ultimate Guide to Estonian E-residency, Banking and Taxes
• Big Data firm bridges Silicon Valley with Ukraine’s Kharkiv
• e-Estonia: leading the way on digital government
• The case for Immigration as a catalyst for the Polish Startup Ecosystem
• Startup To Watch: Plag From Lithuania
• Warsaw Ecosystem: Connecting a Disconnected City
• TechCrunch Meetup in Krakow: Report
• The five hottest Polish Fintech Startups
• Why does Russian-made Telegram messaging app irritate its competitors?
• Report: TechStars descends upon Krakow
• EYIF: Your DNA is Polish, Your Markets are Global
• Poland, land of ‘IT’ girls, home of ‘she-geeks’
• Six Polish Startups That Help You Do It Yourself
• How a Russian Immigrant Started the Next Major U.S. Beauty Company
• Poland: A promising startup ecosystem with success stories and a few teething problems
• 5 Facts about the Russian Travel Industry from a Local Expert
• Tallinn, Estonia: Baltic city’s global digital ambitions
• Europe’s hottest startups 2015: Moscow
• Dealflow, startup traction and news from Latvia: July
• Russian Startups Are Coming to the U.S.
• Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab faked malware to harm rivals – Ex-employees
• Latvia is an exciting startup country. Here is why
• Russian e-commerce in crisis: Molotok shuts down, Mamagazin suspends activities
• Report: TechCrunch Let’s Meet in Krakow
• Lithuania is on the right track: One biotechnological solution at a time
• A chat with Uldis Leiterts, founder of data visualisation platform Infogr.am
• Warsaw startup hotbed Reaktor turns four
• New world of work: Digital marketplace reshapes casual labour
• Venture investment in Russia grew in 2014 thanks to state support but Q1’2015 showed a 50 percent decline in deals’ value
• Why Adblocking software is killing Ad revenue in Poland
• Young, innovative and fearless Startup Lithuania summer
• The Tricity Startup Ecosystem – Three Cities, One Future
• Ukrainian hardware startups face and overcome the perils of crowdfunding
• Andrey Kolodyuk: ​Building a startup nation is a new Ukrainian dream
• The Uber of Russia is crushing the American version
• The code of Latvia’s Clusterpoint: How a search engine became a database
• I’m now an Estonian e-resident, but I still don’t know what to do with it
• Can Ukraine be the next start-up nation?
• An interview with Uldis Leiterts, the co-founder of Infogr.am