This article was published on August 1, 2014

All the tech news you shouldn’t miss from Eastern Europe: July


All the tech news you shouldn’t miss from Eastern Europe: July

Another hot summer month has passed, and we hope that our readers have had a chance to spend some great time outdoors enjoying warm sun and fresh air. On the news side, we’ve got you covered — here is a round-up of the most significant news from the tech scene of Eastern Europe happened in July, as well as a list of longer reads related to this region.

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 shlema@gmail.com.

Startups, funds and accelerators

  • Russian DST Global has launched its fourth investment fund — DST Global IV.
  • Startupbootcamp Berlin has announced a new batch of eight startups, one of which — CoModule, — comes from Estonia.
  • Bosnian app for musicians Qorio has won Superfounders Demo Day in Macedonia.
  • Moscow-based investment company Starta Capital has announced the launch of Starta Capital Accessor Fund I, a venture fund with an initial capital of $3 million.
  • Belarusian Wargaming has joined Nexon and Zynga’s CEO Don Mattrick backing a new early stage seed fund focused primarily on the European games sector.
  • Hungarian startup program Kitchen Budapest has presented its new batch of four startups.
  • AirDog has received more than $1 million on Kickstarter, becoming the most successful Latvian crowdfunded project.
  • The first edition of Web MVP Academy in Bucharest has concluded with a Demo Day session.
  • A team of Polish tinkerers has brought the “Change Camera View” button to the real life.
  • Ukrainian startup LaMetric has raised more than $360,000 on Kickstarter for its “hackable, real-time smart display”.
  • Polish startup Fashionote has won KrakowCrunch.
  • GetJar founder and investor Ilja Laurs has formed a new VC fund to back 20 Eastern European startups a year.
  • Ukraine-born startup CheckiO has launched a crowdsourced coding game platform for Python developers.

Funding deals and M&A

  • German data analytics company RapidMiner has acquired Hungarian startup Radoop.
  • Russian fund of funds RVC and Skolkovo have injected $1.2 million in micro-sized antenna maker Bisant.
  • BlaBlaCar has raised a $100 million funding round to develop its service in CEE, particularly in Ukraine and Russia.
  • The venture arm of Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank has invested $8 million in US banking startup Moven.
  • Russian online communication tool developer Livetex has received $4 million in funding from Vaizra Capital owned by VK.com co-funders.
  • Package tour reseller Travelata.ru has secured a $7 million investment from EBRD and Polish fund MCI.
  • Russian payment giant Qiwi has invested $700,000 in 12 startups selected for its QIWI Universe acceleration program.
  • International VC funds  e.ventures, Global Founders Capital, Holtzbrinck Ventures, and InVenture Partners have injected $7 million into Russian package tour online reseller OnlineTours.ru.
  • Russian startup Speaktoit based in the US has raised $2,6 million in a Series B funding round.
  • Russian foundation FRII has invested $830,000 in two local startups, city guide Voxxter and online event listings service 2do2go.
  • Kraków based  micro-location tech startup Kontakt.io has attracted a $2 million funding round from Sunstone Capital.
  • Latvian startup Roamer with a goal to “eliminate roaming charges forever” has raised $1.3 million in funding from a group of telecom industry veterans.
  • Russian video re-mix startup Coub has raised $2.5 million from a VC fund headed up by VK.com founders.
  • New Latvian VC FlyCap has led a $500,000 funding round for local email marketing startup Mailigen.
  • Startup founded by the son of former Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky has received a $700,000 funding round in the US.
  • Lithuanian startup WoraPay has secured a €400,000 funding round from Israel-based Entrée Capital.
  • Ukrainian statrup Advice Wallet has raised $1,5 in funding from Russian VC fund Life.SREDA.
  • Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has invested $2 million in Israeli startup AcousticEye.
  • Facebook has acquired Romanian video advertising platform LiveRail.
  • Security software company Avast has acquired Czech mobile app development studio Inmite.

In other news

  • Russian team has won the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest for the 6th time in the past 10 years.
  • Russian IP video surveillance software company Macroscop has signed a $15 million contract in Bahrain.
  • Russia’s biggest social network VK.com is planning to launch a mobile game development platform.
  • Viber has opened representative office in Russia.
  • Messenger ICQ, which is owned by Russia’s Mail.ru Group, is taking over Brasil after locally popular social network Orkut was shut down by Google.
  • Ukrainian state agencies have decided to stop using Russian software.
  • VK.com has suffered a massive drop in profit from $1.5 million to $225,000.
  • Russia’s richest man Alisher Usmanov has increased his voting stake in Mail.ru Group to 64.6%.
  • Websites of Mail.ru Group have been blocked in Italy over piracy allegations.
  • Russia’s Interior Ministry has offered nearly 4 million rubles ($114,000) for research on ways to get data on users of the anonymous web surfing network Tor.
  • eBay and Russian Post have signed a memorandum announcing their deal to cooperate with the aim of reducing the time of deliveries to Russia from China, the US, the UK, and Germany.
  • Twitter has blocked prominent hacker account in Russia following government request.
  • VK.com co-founder and former CEO Pavel Durov has cloned his messenger Telegram.
  • Russia’s President has signed a law that could end up blocking Facebook and Twitter in the country.

Good reads from around the Web

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