Tech news from Eastern Europe: Your roundup for August

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Andrii Degeler

Andrii is the Head of Media at TNW, with over a decade of experience in covering the European tech ecosystem. Talk to him about new and exci (show all) Andrii is the Head of Media at TNW, with over a decade of experience in covering the European tech ecosystem. Talk to him about new and exciting developments in tech, especially those involving vastly underreported industry niches and geographies.

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

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