August in Eastern Europe: All the tech news you shouldn’t miss

The last month of summer has proved what we were suspecting for a while — there’s no such thing as “quiet time” in the tech business any more. Let us help you navigate the tech scene of Central and Eastern Europe with this round-up of the most significant news and deals that happened here in August.

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

Startups, funds and accelerators

• VKontakte co-founder Vyacheslav Mirilashvili has co-founded Yesodot Private Equity, a new venture fund in Israel.
• Inventure has announced an increased €68 million fund to assist Nordic & Baltic startups in soft landing to the US.
• Latvian data visualization startup Infogr.am has added Mikko Jarvenpaa to its team as COO.
• Startup Wise Guys BusinessTech accelerator has introduced its autumn 2014 batch.
• Serbian startup Semaphore has become free for private use, offering developers a “GitHub of software testing.”
• Ukrainian startup Ritot has been accused of fraud after raising $1 million on Indiegogo.
• Airbnb has partnered with Russian startup Ostrovok to enable the latter’s customers to book Airbnb properties through its website.
• Croatian startup Codeanywhere, which is developing tools for programming in the cloud, has joined the fall 2014 Boston batch of the TechStars accelerator.
• Ukraine’s venture capitalists have launched their own association that aims to be “the front door for foreign investors.”
• Polish startup has unveiled the Cloud Beacon, which comes with a crucial new feature: Wi-Fi connectivity.
• Central and Eastern Europe has got a new venture fund in Fiedler Capital.
• Ukrainian-founded startup Attendify has unveiled Hub, a completely redesigned platform for creating and managing event apps.
• Wired has highlighted 10 Russian startups, but presumably got it wrong with positive business predictions.
• Estonia-based collaboration tool Fleep has come out of beta and added a premium option.

Funding deals and M&A

• Lithuanian marketplace for beauty services Tokia.lt has raised close to $300,000 in funding from Practica Capital.
• Russian-backed venture fund TMT Investments has injected $250,000 in US fashion rental platform Le Tote.
• Russian event-management service TimePad has received a second round of investment from the fund Target Ventures, bringing the total funding to $1 million.
• Hungarian Bitcoin startup Bits of Proof has been acquired by CoinTerra.
• Freshly launched Russian venture fund Run Capital has invested  $600,000 in tour operator service WeAtlas.
• Moscow Seed Fund has co-invested $83,000 in advertising system Likeberi.
• Russian startups PromoAtlas and Fotokeeper have raised $496,000 in funding via crowd investment platform StartTrack.
• Romanian-founded startup TwoTap has landed a $2.7 funding round.
• Ukrainian mobile payment startup Advice Wallet has closed a funding round at 1.5 million dollars with Russian Life.SREDA.
• Russian holding company KupiVIP has acquired Price3d.ru, a product catalogue platform that works with online stores in the clothing, shoes and accessories sector.
• Russian venture fund Life.SREDA has reportedly participated in a $13 million funding round for mobile payment operator SumUp.
• Ukrainian startup DataProm has attracted $500,000 in funding from investment fund Fison.
• Ukrainian startup myTips has received $75,000 in funding and a place at Californian incubator 500 Startups.
• Controversial Russian startup HealBe has received $2.6 million in funding from a group of unnamed private investors.
• Riga-based social Q&A platform Ask.fm has been acquired by Ask.com.
• Dutch Bitcoin platform Blocktrail has received $670k investment from BlockCorp, founded by Boaz Bechar and former Vkontakte shareholder Lev Leviev.
• Russian audio streaming startup Zvooq has received round A investment totaling $20 million.
• Mail.ru Group has disclosed the sum it paid in April for 12% of social network VKontakte: the stake cost the group around $345 million.
• Russian pension funds will invest $1 billion in venture funds and innovative companies.
• Ukrainian startup YoCard has received $300,000 in funding for expansion to Russian market.
• Ukrainian-Kazakh startup Robo has landed $200,000 in funding from US venture fund SOS Ventures and moved to the Chinese hardware startup accelerator HAXLR8R.
• Russian Action Media Group has invested $200,000 in SaaS service Arnica.pro.
• Video streaming service Vidmind has raised $30 million from Russian retail tycoon.
• Warsaw-based Beacons service provider Ifinity had been valued at $12 million after a seed funding round.
• Hungarian navigation software developer NNG, which makes the iGO application, has bought US peer nFuzion.
• Restaurant search and discovery service Zomato has acquired Czech Republic’s Lunchtime.cz and Slovakia’s Obedovat.sk.

In other news

• Yandex has launched a new speech recognition cloud service called SpeechKit Cloud.
• The total investments in Russian Internet projects totaled $231.7 million in the first half of 2014, up 77% compared with the same period last year.
• Russian smartphone vendor YotaDevices has opened an office in Canada.
• Yandex.Money has launched Merchium, a new service for creating online stores.
• Ukrainian tech sector will showcase its emerging talent in San Francisco at U.T.Gem conference.
• Online catalogue platform Tiendeo has arrived in Russia.
• Profits from private investments in Russia and Central Europe have been higher than anywhere else, based on the amount of profit compared to the amount of investment.
• Asian bank card giants UnionPay and JCB have expanded initiatives to conquer the Russian market.
• Russia’s Quadro Capital Partners and Forex Club have announced plans to invest $200 million in international online trading.
• Russian Internet giant Mail.Ru has cut sales growth forecast as advertising revenue took a nosedive.
• Russian search giant Yandex has released Q2 earnings.
• Yandex has launched a new commercial version of its Translation API, allowing users to translate larger volumes of text.
• The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development has pulled out of a planned joint investment fund with Russian state-owned technology investment company Rusnano.
• Twitter has expanded its advertising network in Europe with 12 countries, mainly in the CEE region.
• Yandex has announced significant changes in its leadership in Russia and globally.
• Russian hacking group has reportedly collected 1.2 billion usernames and passwords.
• Ukrainian parliament is considering a law that would allow authorities to block websites, along with other media.
• Unknown hackers had hijacked the Twitter account of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
• Mail.Ru’s myMail has become the most popular alternative email app for Android and iOS, according to Distimo.
• Two major US high-tech firms have stopped supplying Russian partners.
• Russian government has forced popular bloggers to register with the country’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor.
• Investment AB Kinnevik has published a trading statement of Russia’s most popular classifieds website Avito.ru for the second quarter 2014.
• FBI is investigating Russian links to recent JPMorgan hacking.

Good reads from around the Web

• Slovenia will boost its startup ecosystem
• Chinese giants make their move into Russia’s booming cross-border e-commerce scene
• Why Slovakian paywall technology startup Piano Media is making news
• Putin Pops Russia’s Tech Bubble
• How a community is born: The rise of Polish startups
• Meet DocPlanner, the Polish startup that aims to take the pain out of booking medical appointments
• How a Polish student’s website became an Isis propaganda tool
• How to sneak a Tesla into Russia for just 6.5 million rubles

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