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

The fall has started in the Eastern European tech world with a huge wave of news stories and insightful reads, which we’ve done our best to thoroughly process and gather in one convenient round-up. Make sure you haven’t missed any significant deals, announcements and feature stories in the region.

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

Startups, funds and accelerators

• Kyiv startup yoCard has entered Russian market, gearing up towards international expansion
• Ukrainian investment fund Fison has announced the winners of its startup contest
• Ukrainian angel investors’ network UAngel has appointed new executive director, but still struggles to get officially registered
• New Russian venture fund Restart Capital will target “internet companies with problems”
• Russia and China may create a joint nanotech fund
• Russian firm Ingate has launched a new venture fund, Ingate Venture, with $15 million to put into new projects
• Belorussian businessman Vitaliy Arbuzov has launched a new venture fund with $20 million to invest in startups from North America and South East Asia
• Latvian-Norwegian Green incubator has been launched in Riga
• Ukrainian entrepreneur Oleksii Vitchenko has launched a new investment company Digital Future, which will be looking to invest from $25,000 per project for a 10 to 15 percent stake
• Ukraine-made iBlazr flashes for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch are now on sale in Apple Store
• Latvian Infogr.am has launched a feature specifically for teams, letting those who work in close unison collaborate and access shared resources from their own accounts
• The Moscow Seed Fund has announced its latest competition to recruit investors for joint seed and pre-seed stage investment in their projects
• Bulgarian startup accelerator Launchub has announced its new batch of six teams
• Danish out-staffing software development company Ciklum has announced a startup-in-residence program in Ukraine
• Ukrainian entrepreneur Dmytro Kostyk is bringing his Interactive Restaurant Technology to the US market

Funding deals and M&A

• Russia’s Yandex has purchased mobile development studio Any Void
• Russia’s Acronis has bought Dutch cloud backup software firm BackupAgent
• Ru-Net has teamed up with Sequoia and Sofina to invest in Indian mobile recharge platform FreeCharge
• The Foundation for Internet Development Initiatives (FRII) has invested $2.9 million in online children’s store Babadu
• Russia’s Netology has merged with online education center Foxford and received $1.1 million in funding
• From Russia with video conferencing software: Webinar.ru has scored $7.3 million from Intel and others
• Ukrainian robotics startup Robo has received a $200,000 investment from American venture fund SOS Ventures and a group of angels
• Russian TMT Investments has invested in news aggregator Anews and mobile advertising network Adinch. The companies received $1 million and $600k respectively
• Major Russian B2B publishing house Action Media Group has invested $200,000 in SaaS service Arnica.pro
• Ukrainian startup Clickganic has received a $300,000 investment for 35 percent of the company
• TMT Investments has announced an investment deal with social network analysis platform Twtrland
• Wikimart.ru has raised $40 million from domestic investors after failing to attract foreign VCs
• Slovakia’s Piano Media has bought US counterpart Press+ to create world’s largest digital paywall tech company
• US startup Slice with Ukrainian R&D team has been acquired by Japanese online retailer Rakuten
• Yandex has announced the acquisition of adtech platform ADFOX
• Moscow government has bought itself a social network
• Estonian startup GrabCad has been bought by Stratasys for some $100 million
• The Moscow Seed Fund and nanotech center Technospark have invested $156,000 in tech company NSL, which is developing a medical laser drill
• Runa Capital has led a $2.2 million round in US school admission startup
• Almaz Capital has led a $4 million funding round in US e-commerce solution provider
• China’s Xinwei and Ukraine’s Datagroup have stroke an investment agreement for $400 million
• Russian investor Igor Ryabenkiy and fund SMRK have participated in a $500,000 funding round in AmazingHiring
• Russian social alarm service Wakie has secured $2 million in funding from LETA Capital
• Ukrainian groceries delivery service Zakaz.ua has raised $2.5 million from Kyiv ex-mayor’s investment group

In other news

• A castle built from Bitcoins rises in Estonia
• UTGem conference has given Silicon Valley a taste of Ukraine’s IT world
• Yandex will place contextual ads Yandex.Direct on VKontakte
• Russia’s most popular social network VKontakte has launched its own IT news platform
• Messaging app Telegram created by VK founder Pavel Durov has received background media downloads, tweaked UI on Android
• US computer firm Dell has announced the opening of Big Data Open Lab in Moscow
• Russian online retailer Lamoda has merged with four other online fashion retailers to form Global Fashion Group
• Google Vice President has met with head of Russian Internet watchdog Roskomnadzor
• Yandex.Translate has launched a free version for iPhone and iPad with offline translation feature
• UberX, the budget version of US-based taxi-hailing service Uber, has arrived in Moscow
• Alibaba’s AliExpress has become the most visited e-commerce website in Russia
• Databases containing login details of 1.26 million Yandex Mail users and 4.66 million Mail.ru users have been published on two online forums
• Moscow-wide public WiFi could be in place by 2018
• The Russian Communications Ministry has proposed a 10 percent tax on license sales to be invested in domestic software developers
• Intel has teamed up with Russian technoparks and decided to continue Skolkovo partnership
• Mobile banking botnet creator has been arrested for the first time in Russia
• Ukrainian tech investors have created an association to promote local firms and lobby for the industry
• Yandex has introduced personal recommendations to its music streaming service Yandex.Music
• Vietnamese mobile operator Viettel may invest $1 billion in 3G network in Ukraine
• China’s Beidou and Russia’s Glonass are in talks to harmonize standards
• The Russian Ministry of Culture is planning to create a national hotel bookings service to compete with Booking.com
• Microsoft has teamed up with Russian state fund FRII to support industrial startups
• Personal data law could force international companies to suspend Russian operations
• Adobe has shut down its representative office in Russia
• Yandex has launched a home service marketplace
• Lamoda’s losses exceeded $50 million in 2013; site exposed to risk due to international tensions
• Groupon has decided to wind down its operation in Romania after it failed to find enough traction in the market
• U.S. investors General Catalyst and Accel Partners have quietly divested their holdings in Russian travel company Ostrovok.ru
• VKontakte has started to crack down on accounts related to the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL)
• Russian lawmakers have proposed and then immediately shelved a plan that would limit SkypeOut calls
• Ukrainian IT pioneer Oleksandr Olshanskiy has announced candidacy for parliament with holistic vision for army and economy

Good reads and research

• Ukrainians have more than 40 million social network accounts, Russian sites still dominate the market
• No chances for Facebook in Russia?
• Ukrainian ICT market could shrink by up to 50% in 2014; IT services less affected than equipment
• 11 things you need to know about Yandex SEO
• N-iX founder Andrew Pavliv: “The unrest in Eastern Ukraine has affected new potential clients’ attitude, even though we’re feeling safe one thousand miles away”
• Kazakh e-commerce catching up
• Opinion: “Ukraine’s IT world set to leap into brighter future”
• Our modern computer has Bulgarian roots
• TC Disrupt winners — “pale imitations of Russian startups”?
• Russian venture market continues annual decline in Q2 2014 as cross-border investment could virtually disappear
• Jessica Tams, director of Casual Connect: Belgrade is perfect location for our growth
• What are CEE startups expecting for the next six months?
• Russian IT companies: “Our business is obstructed not by sanctions themselves but by the things that generated them”
• Opinion: “The current turmoil will stimulate high tech investment from large Ukrainian groups”
• IT market in Russia 2014 – Current situation and short term outlook
• EU Top Jobs are being created everywhere: a Hungarian success story
• Russia’s tech startup scene retreats amid Ukraine conflict (paywalled)
• The Internet of Things has arrived in a big way, and one of the most potentially revolutionary IoT pioneers happens to be a startup from Poland
• Ukrainian technology hub Bionic Hill has stalled in big setback to grand vision