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Central Europe I 33
Skype co-founder Toivo Annus dies suddenly at the age of 48
Linas Jegelevicius
Toivo Annus, a prominent Estonian entrepreneur and engineer, who was known as one of the founders of Skype, a global telecommunications application, has died suddenly at the age of 49.
His widow was quoted by Estonian press as saying that her husband died suddenly on Sunday, July 12 of an unexpected illness.
“I inform you with the utmost sadness that last weekend, on 12 July, our beloved husband, dad, entrepreneur and investor, Toivo Annus, succumbed to an unexpected illness,” his widow announced via press statement on July 13. She added that the funeral service will be held privately among his family and the closest ones.
Skype was launched in Estonia in 2003, by two Scandinavian entrepreneurs, Danish Janus Friis, and Swedish Niklas Zennstrom, and by four Estonian developers – Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, Jaan Tallinn and Annus.
Annus played a major role in managing the first Skype office in Tallinn and
overseeing the engineering and core peer-to-peer network team.
This new communications startup that became wildly popular worldwide soon helped create a new philosophy of business and inspired both fellow Estonians and world citizens.
When Skype was sold to eBay in 2005 for $2.6bn, it became the first unicorn – a privately held startup company valued at over $1bn – founded in Estonia.
After the sale of Skype, the four Estonian founders set up a private asset management company, Ambient Sound Investment.
Annus also invested privately in
a number of companies across the world and was very active in Asia, especially Singapore.
In 2010, the Estonian president bestowed on him the Order of the White Star, fifth class.
bne:Tech
Contents
Top stories
Russia’s top retail and tech companies join forces to hunt for innovations in the rest of the world 2 Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019 4 Russian video streaming platforms
gain speed 5 Cloud services take off in Russia 6 SEMrush to SEO success 8
Leaders 9
Russia’s internet giant Yandex
announces growing and more
diversified revenues in 2019 10 Russian telecom major Rostelecom misses on earnings in 4Q19, cash
flow solid 12
Investment 13
World Bank approves $35mn project
to modernise Kyrgyz tax administration and statistical system 13 Romanian online home decoration
retailer raises €3.5mn in bonds 14 Russian billionaires Abramovich, Gutseriev, said to invest in Telegram
crypto project TON 14 Russian fund Da Vinci Capital gets
€30mn from Germany’s DEG to invest
in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan 15
Fintech & E-commerce 16
Russian e-commerce major
Wildberries to add self-employed
vendor products to offering 16 Russian Dixy retailer to launch online sales with Ozon 17 Valuation of Sistema’s e-commerce
asset Ozon boosted to $1.8bn 17
Telecom 19
Makedonski Telekom’s net profit
up 6% y/y in 2019 19 Romanian telco Digi grows by double
digit rates in 2019 19 Russia could postpone 5G rollout
from 2022 to 2024 20
NIBs 21
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Russia’s top retail and tech companies
join forces to hunt for innovations in
the rest of the world
BAs Russia’s retail and tech sectors consolidate, the leading companies are turned their gaze outwards to hunt for
bne:Tech
new technology and innovation.
See page 2
Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019
In 2019, the venture capital and private equity funding volume for Ukrainian and Ukrainian-founded tech startups reached $544mn (up from $323mn in 2018 and $265mn in 2017), says AVentures Capital’s latest industry report ”DealBook of Ukraine”,
reports Adrien Henni of Ukraine Digital News. See page 4
www.bne.eu