A summer of exits sees CostPocket, Zone and Outfunnel all change hands, Estonia bets state money on AI compute and adoption, and an arson attack fails to slow Milrem’s deliveries to Ukraine.
Welcome to the August edition of Kood Letter!
News
Swedish Fintech Mynt Buys Estonian Expense-Management Startup CostPocket
Stockholm-based spend-management fintech Mynt has acquired 100% of CostPocket, the Estonian receipt-capture and expense-management company, converting a roughly two-year card partnership into full ownership.
CEO Toni Kivinen framed the sale as access to Mynt’s scaled payment infrastructure while keeping the CostPocket brand, product and team intact, calling it validation that a Baltic-built product can hold its own in the Nordic fintech landscape.
Pipedrive Acquires Outfunnel, Bringing Its Top-Rated Marketplace App In-House
Estonian-born CRM giant Pipedrive has acquired Outfunnel, the Estonian sales-and-marketing automation startup that was the highest-rated app on the Pipedrive Marketplace, and plans to fold the technology directly into its CRM over the coming months.
The deal doubles as a family reunion: co-founder Andrus Purde was Pipedrive’s early head of marketing, and his brother Urmas was one of its five founders. “Exits are a big part of startup life, but it seems mine is through a revolving door,” Purde joked.
Zone Sold to Dutch Owners, and Hosting Prices May Follow
Zone (Zone Media OÜ), Estonia’s largest domain registrar and web- and email-hosting provider, has been sold to a Dutch family-owned group building a pan-European network of digital-services companies. Founder-CEO Martti Varik pitched it as access to a wider European ecosystem.
Not everyone sees only upside: industry figure Kristjan Hiiemaa argued in a follow-up piece that with Zone rolled into a larger consolidator, Estonian web-hosting prices are likely to start climbing.
Estonia Bets State Money on AI: Compute, Public-Sector Projects and Business Grants
Estonia spent the summer putting public money behind AI on three fronts. The state plans to procure up to €20 million of high-performance compute from an AI gigafactory branch tied to the Nordic Lumi consortium, following the EU’s billion-euro competition to build up to seven AI “gigafactories” across Europe.
At home, the government is backing public-sector AI adoption with over €1.3 million across its first seven funded projects, while Enterprise Estonia (EIS) has begun accepting applications for business AI-adoption grants, on condition that results are verifiable.
Milrem Shrugs Off Arson Attack: No Impact on Ukraine Deliveries
A building used by military-robotics maker Milrem Robotics in Tallinn burned overnight on 14–15 August, in what investigators are treating as suspected sabotage; suspects were detained in Latvia, and PM Kristen Michal named possible Russian involvement as one line of inquiry.
CEO Kuldar Väärsi told Reuters that production and delivery schedules for this year and next remain intact. Milrem expects more than 200 of its unmanned ground vehicles deployed in Ukraine by year-end.
Cyber
RIA Mobile-ID Users Must Replace Their SIM Cards by May 2027
More than 220,000 Mobile-ID users in Estonia will need to swap their SIM cards before 19 May 2027 to keep using the service, driven by amendments to the EU’s eIDAS Regulation. The way Mobile-ID works won’t change.
RIA’s Silvia Lips urged users to keep at least two eID solutions active and warned of a heightened scam risk during the transition, with fraudsters posing as operator staff. Your PIN1 and PIN2 should never be shared.
August in Cyberspace: 899 Incidents, a School Ransomware Hit, and Parking-Fine Phishing
RIA registered 899 cyber incidents with an impact in August, several of them plain technical failures: outages hit Tallinn Airport’s ABC gates, Swedbank, Pärnu Hospital, and the government’s central sign-in service GovSSO. On 28 August, a Harju County school was hit by ransomware that encrypted its servers.
A phishing campaign also circulated in which fraudsters posed as the Transport Administration, claiming victims owed a parking fine. Neither the police nor the Transport Administration send fine notices by text message.
Upcoming Events
Track all of these (and everything we add between issues) on our tech events calendar — or subscribe via iCal in your app of choice.
TalTech VIBE_SPRINT
Date: September 18–19, 2026
Location: TalTech Mektory, Tallinn
A 24-hour hackathon at TalTech Mektory exploring AI-assisted (“vibe”) coding workflows, open to students and builders experimenting with AI pair-programming tools.
More information: More information
Estonian Defence Week 2026
Date: September 21, 2026
Location: Tallinn Creative Hub
A gathering on defence-sector innovation and dual-use technology in Estonia, bringing together government, industry and startups working on security and resilience.
More information: More information
BSides Tallinn 2026
Date: September 24, 2026
Location: T1 Mall of Tallinn
A community-run, single-track cybersecurity conference for practitioners and researchers, part of the international BSides series.
More information: More information
City Resilience Hack
Date: September 24–25, 2026
Location: Energy Discovery Centre, Tallinn
A hackathon on climate adaptation and urban resilience, organized with the City of Tallinn and Tehnopol.
More information: More information
Lock in & Build Hackathon
Date: September 26–27, 2026
Location: Tallinn
A weekend, build-focused hackathon for founders and developers to ship a working product in a single sprint.
More information: More information
Baltic Electronics Conference 2026 (BEC2026)
Date: October 5, 2026
Location: Nordic Hotel Forum, Tallinn
TalTech’s biennial academic and industry conference on electronics, microelectronics and embedded systems research.
More information: More information
E-Vote-ID 2026
Date: October 6, 2026
Location: House of the Blackheads, Tallinn
The 11th International Joint Conference on Electronic Voting, bringing together researchers and election officials working on verifiable, secure digital voting.
More information: More information
kood/Empower Coding Bootcamp
Date: October 6–9, 2026
Location: kood/Jõhvi
A beginner-friendly 4-day coding bootcamp for women in the Ida-Viru region. Part of the kood/Women program, supported by Swedbank. Accommodation, lunches and one dinner included.
More information: kood/Garage48 Empowering Women
Digit 2026
Date: October 9, 2026
Location: Kammivabrik, Tartu
Estonia’s leading software engineering conference, with practical talks on architecture, engineering culture and delivery.
More information: More information
MängudeÖÖ Conference
Date: October 15, 2026
Location: Tallinn
A game development conference bringing together Estonian and international studios to cover production, design and the local games industry.
More information: More information
Future of Wood 2026
Date: October 16–18, 2026
Location: EWERS Tehnomaja, Väimela, Estonia
A Garage48 hackathon focused on innovation in the wood and forestry industry, bringing startups and industry together on new product ideas.
More information: More information
Garage48 Empowering Women Hackathon
Date: October 16–18, 2026
Location: kood/Jõhvi
A 3-day hackathon helping women in Ida-Viru County turn a first business idea into a working prototype. No prior coding or business experience required.
Registration: Register here
Tallinn Data Week 2026
Date: October 19, 2026
Location: Tallinn
A week of talks and workshops on data, analytics and AI for the Estonian data community, opening with a flagship conference day.
More information: More information
Software Defined Space Conference (SDSC) 2026
Date: October 27, 2026
Location: Fotografiska Tallinn
A conference on software and data challenges in the space industry.
More information: More information
Tallinn Digital Summit 2026
Date: November 5, 2026
Location: Tallinn
An annual summit on digital governance and cybersecurity policy, organized with the International Centre for Defence and Security.
More information: More information
Nordic Conference on Atlassian 2026
Date: November 27, 2026
Location: Kultuurikatel, Tallinn
A Nordic community conference for Atlassian tools (Jira, Confluence) users, admins and consultants.
More information: More information
W3N 2026
Date: December 3–4, 2026
Location: Narva
A web3 and blockchain conference held in Narva, covering crypto, decentralized infrastructure and digital assets.
More information: More information
sTARTUp Day 2027
Date: January 28–30, 2027
Location: Tartu
A large startup and entrepreneurship festival in Tartu. Note: exact 2027 dates are inconsistent across the event’s own pages at the time of this check (late-January vs. an August date on one listing) — worth reconfirming closer to the date.
More information: More information
Latitude59 2027
Date: May 19–21, 2027
Location: Kultuurikatel, Tallinn
Estonia’s flagship startup and tech conference, bringing together founders, investors and international tech media.
More information: More information
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