Page 28 - BNE_magazine_bne_July2019_20190707

28 I Companies & Markets bne July 2019
Bulgaria, Czechia and Slovenia picked to host European supercomputing centres
bne IntelliNews
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia are
among eight EU member states selected to host supercomputing centres, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel announced on June 7.
The European Commission describes the initiative as a step towards making Europe a top supercomputing power globally. 19 member states are cooperating in the project, which has
a total cost of €840mn.
The centres are part of the European High-Perfomance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) that will pool EU and national resources to develop top-of-the-range exascale supercomputers for processing big data.
Russian medical insurance startup attracts $3mn
for international expansion
EWDN in Moscow
Moscow-based startup BestDoctor, which offers high-tech insurance products for individuals and businesses, attracted $3mn in a Series A round of funding in May, reports East-West Digital News (EWDN).
The round was led by three international venture firms with Russian roots: Target Global, Ascent and AddVenture. (The two latter already invested in BestDoctor in previous rounds.) A group of business angels also participated in the deal, the media reported.
The details of the deal and the current value of BestDoctor were not disclosed. In October 2017, BestDoctor attracted $500,000 from AddVenture and a group of private investors
The supercomputing centres will be located in Sofia (Bulgaria), Ostrava (Czechia), Kajaani (Finland), Bologna (Italy), Bissen (Luxembourg), Minho (Portugal), Maribor (Slovenia), and Barcelona (Spain), a statement from the European Commission said.
“They will support Europe's researchers, industry and businesses in developing new applications in a wide range of areas, from designing medicines and new materials
to fighting climate change,” according to the statement.
"I am convinced that the new supercomputers that these sites will host will boost Europe's competitiveness in the digital area. We have demonstrated the strength of our European approach which will bring concrete benefits to our citizens and help our SMEs,” Gabriel commented.
Russian online store Wildberries leads the top 100 ranking of biggest Russian e-commerce sites by revenues and is worth more than a billion dollars.
in seed funding. In 2017, BestDoctor reported RUB10mn (roughly $150,000) in revenues.
BestDoctor offers businesses an opportunity to provide medical services to their employees. Employers only pay for the medical services actually rendered to employees, which, as the startup claims, helps businesses save on insurance costs.
BestDoctor claims to be using a smart algorithm to forecast the medical budgets of its clients with an accuracy of 97%. It deducts the money for services rendered on a monthly basis and provides a report on how much money was spent on medicine. The remaining funds are either returned to a particular client’s banking account or are used to cover the next period of service subscription.
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