Dmytro Shymkiv (previously, among others, Head of Microsoft Ukraine & Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine) bought a <50% stake in Ukrainian drone manufacturer AeroDrone (the transaction terms were not disclosed). Before the Ukraine war, AeroDrone was developing the "DR-60" drone (~€75k) for farmers to spray their fields with plant protection products & microfertilizers. By December 2022, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) of Ukraine had allowed two new AeroDrone (drone) models for military use. One being the "D80-Discovery" drone, which can lift up to 80kg of cargo, fly at a speed of 120km/h for 900km & perform flight tasks on autopilot. The other being the "E-300 Enterprise" drone, with a payload of up...

Poland-based SmartyMeet is developing a video bot technology called “Boe”. The bot can translate a meeting in real time & find the necessary info in knowledge bases (CRM & PIM/ DAM). It can also provide an analysis of positive or negative moods during the conversation & generate post-meeting notes. To do so, SmartyMeet uses OpenAI models such as Whisper (& ChatGPT) combined with AWS Transcribe. It’s worth mentioning that the intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) market was worth $5.8bn in 2020 & expected to reach $52bn in 2028 (growing ~10x, or 28.5% annually). The USA & Canada are the largest/ fastest growing markets, followed by the UK, where SmartyMeet intends to establish a beachhead. In addition,...