Top Stories August 29: Dell’s Russia exit could boost local server providers

UKRAINE

37% of Ukrainian IT companies are considering relocation, with 23% going to move their office within Ukraine and 14% ready to go to other countries as the war against Russia continues with no end in sight, as revealed by joint research by the IT Ukraine association and legal company Sayenko Kharenko. 55% of the companies surveyed have not relocated their offices: 25% shifted to distant work, while 30% combine offline and remote modes. [Source: Fixygen] 

Ukrainian startup Metal Time launched a fundraising campaign supported by other Ukrainian IT companies to rebuild the biggest world aircraft Antonov Mriya AN-225, which was destroyed during the first days of the war. Metal Time is producing kit models of Mriya with the whole revenue handed over to the Antonov corporation and its staff. [Source: Air Cargo News]

REGULATION

Uzbekistan’s Ministry for Innovative Development established an Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence (AI) open to scientists, non-government organizations, high schools and private companies. The council will help the government deliver a national strategy on AI and get feedback from the country’s society on the issue for better governance. [Source: Podrobno.uz]

Roskomnadzor, the Russian communications regulator, blocked news aggregator The True Story founded by Lev Gershenson, the former head of Yandex.Novosti, the Russian Internet giant’s news service. Blocked just three day after launch, The True Story planned to publish all essential news with links to various media including those that were “under pressure” from Russia’s government according to Gershenson. [Source: Forbes] 

KAZAKHSTAN 

Kazakhstan’s legal company Digital Rights Center Qazaqstan and The Kazakhstan State Legal University set up CyberLaw School, a program for lawyers specializing in various Internet cases. The school will deal with issues like blockchain, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, smart contracts, digital rights, etc. [Source: Profit]

Eurasian Space Ventures (ESV) and international IT startups techno park Astana Hub signed a memorandum of cooperation to team up for the development of IT projects in Kazakhstan’s space industry. ESV, the first private space company in the country, is seeking to use modern IT technologies to boost its growth and perspectives. [Source: Profit]

KPMG has set up KPMG Tech Awards that will be annually given to persons and companies that have advanced the IT industry in Kazakhstan. This year’s winners will be known after September 10 in three nominations: Tech Woman of the Year, GovTech Professional of the Year, and Digital Breakthrough of the Year. [Source: ER10]

ECONOMY UNDER SANCTIONS 

The exodus of US server and computer maker Dell Technologies from Russia will force local companies to turn to Russian and Chinese alternatives, according to a Russian IT expert and CEO of data storage company Aerodisk. Dell, which is firing all Russian staff and closing its subsidiary, had a 21% share in the Russian server market that put the company in the leading position, but only a 6% share of the computer market as of 2021. [Source: Infox.ru, RFERL]

Ireland’s digital books service Bookmate, which announced it would leave Russia, is reportedly talking to Yandex about the sale of rights to use its brand in Russia and other CIS countries. The parties have already inked the deal, Vedomosti reports. [Source: Vedomosti]

Sales of laptops in Russia dropped by 22% in July year-on-year in volume terms, a trend the retailers explain by worsening economic conditions amid ongoing war in Ukraine. Shares of the market held by Apple’s products and Taiwan’s ASUS decreased, while China’s Honor and Huawei saw an increase. [Source: Kommersant] 

STARTUPS

Moscow-based investment fund I2BF Global Ventures invested in companies 9count and BeyondTrucks. 9count is a mobile app developer involved in a few big-name projects, while BeyondTrucks is a SaaS-platform facilitating paperwork for small and medium logistics companies. [Source: RB]

A group of entrepreneurs –graduates from the Moscow-based business school Skolkovo and the Russian Internet Initiatives Support Fund – is launching a business accelerator for the food industry in September. The Food Up accelerator aims to help entrepreneurs ready to start food business, from a cafe to producing food or setting up a FoodTech startup. [Source: Spark]

GAMING

VK Play, the gaming platform of Russia’s Internet giant VK, started a beta testing of its game streaming platform VK Play Live. The platform with a range of services close to Twitch will charge streamers 10% of all paid subscriptions. [Source: RB]  

Inworld AI, a startup with Russian founders which creates characters for video games and metaverses with the help of artificial intelligence, raised $50 million from top investors, including Founders Fund, CRV, Microsoft’s M12 fund, LG Technology Ventures, and others. The investments will help Inworld AI to develop a closer interaction between players and so-called non-player characters. [Source: VentureBeat]

SBER

Russian biggest bank Sber launched an EdTech platform, Edutoria, that provides a set of tools for creation and monetization of educational courses. Bank’s representative said that the entity will benefit from Edutoria not only financially, but also as one of the biggest employers in the country through a rising level of education. [Source: Spark]

SberMarket, the online marketplace of Sber, published its database OpenData on the behavior of consumers across goods categories and services. Anyone can look into consumer practices by selecting categories by region, sex or age. [Source: RB]