Cyber firm Blackwall becomes Estonia’s newest unicorn, Bisly signs a $28.7M deal to take its building automation to the US, and Estonia names Russian intelligence as the force behind the Milrem arson.
Welcome to the September edition of Kood Letter!
News
TopTech 2026: Blackwall Jumps 368% to Become Estonia’s Newest Unicorn
This year’s TopTech ranking of Estonia’s most valuable tech companies is led by Wise (€10.98B), Bolt (€7.09B) and Veriff (€1.8B). The headline mover is cybersecurity company Blackwall, whose valuation rose from €221M to €1.03B, putting it in fifth place and earning the award for biggest riser. Its GateKeeper product filters malicious traffic before it reaches a customer’s applications.
The top 30 are worth €26.4B combined. Defence tech is now the biggest sector by number of companies, with seven firms including KrattWorks, Frankenburg Technologies and Threod worth €1.07B together. The ranking is compiled by Prudentia and Siena Secondary Fund.
Creem Raises €5M Seed to Build Billing for AI-Native Startups
Estonian fintech Creem has raised a €5M seed round led by Inovo VC, with Practica Capital and Antler returning. The angel list is a who’s who of Estonian tech: Markus Villig (Bolt), Timmu Tõke and Kaspar Tiri (Ready Player Me), plus founders from Voi and Viktor.com. Total funding now stands at €7M.
Founded by ex-Google and Adyen engineers Gabriel Ferraz and Alec Erasmus, Creem handles checkout, tax compliance, payouts, billing, affiliates and revenue analytics for software companies selling internationally. Its customers are small teams that run much of their business with AI agents, and Creem 2.0 lets both people and agents operate the platform through natural-language prompts. Next up: more agent-operated features and support for both fiat and stablecoin payments.
Bilt.me Raises €615K to Turn App Ideas into Native Mobile Apps
Bilt.me, the Tallinn startup behind May’s Riigikaitse Häkaton, has closed a €615K (about $700K) pre-seed round led by Superhero Capital, with Markus Villig and Lightyear co-founder Martin Sokk also investing.
The platform lets anyone describe an app in plain language and get a native iOS or Android app, complete with payments, hosting and store distribution. Users can export the React Native code. Founded in August 2025 by Uku Joost Annus, Kevin Akkermann and Karl Kiilaspää, all in their early twenties, Bilt.me says thousands of people are already building on it and its annual recurring revenue has doubled month over month for three months running.
Bisly Signs $28.7M Deal to Bring Its Building Automation to the US
Estonian building automation company Bisly has signed a five-year, $28.7M distribution agreement with IBIS (International Building Intelligence Solutions), a New York based distributor and integrator. The deal covers Bisly’s hardware and software for heating, ventilation, lighting and room sensors, along with its digital twin based deployment toolchain.
CEO Ants Vill says the digital twin approach cuts the engineering hours that usually make automation too expensive for residential and mixed-use buildings. Bisly reports payback within two to three years and energy cost savings of up to 40%. The system already runs in more than 6,000 homes across the Baltics, Poland, Finland and the DACH region.
SEB Completes Estonia’s First Payment Made by an AI Agent
SEB and Mastercard have carried out Estonia’s first payment made through an AI agent, following similar first transactions by Mastercard and banks elsewhere in Europe this year. SEB’s head of Baltic strategic partnerships Meelis Nurk said the test shows how much AI is set to change online shopping.
It lands two months after LHV let customers connect their accounts to AI assistants in read-only mode. SEB’s test goes a step further, with the agent actually paying.
36 Companies Get €20,000 Each from the State to Put AI to Work
The Estonian Business and Innovation Agency (EIS) has picked 36 companies to receive €20,000 each from its new AI adoption grant, covering most of a €25,000 project. The grant is meant to move companies from testing AI to using it in daily work, with results backed by a prototype or test data.
Demand caught the agency off guard. The call opened on 24 August and closed the same afternoon, with requests running at more than double the budget. EIS has proposed stretching the funding to around 100 companies and says it will also offer support to applicants who missed out the first time.
AIRE Opens a New Round of AI Demo Projects with No Co-Financing Required
AI & Robotics Estonia (AIRE) is accepting ideas for its autumn round of demo projects, worth up to €49,500 in state aid each with no self-financing required. The catch is novelty: no similar solution may already exist on the market.
The call is aimed at manufacturers and their supply chains, with defence, energy, agriculture and health tech companies also welcome. Each project pairs a company with researchers from TalTech, the University of Tartu, the Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tallinn University, IMECC or Tartu Science Park. Register for the required pre-consultation by 16 November and apply by 30 November. AIRE completed 53 demo projects between 2022 and 2025.
Cyber
Estonian Experts Publish a Cyber Defence Doctrine for the AI Era
Experts from Estonian government agencies, universities, tech companies and banks, including RIA director general Joonas Heiter, have published National Cyber Resilience in the Age of AI. The paper was written with small countries in mind, but larger states have shown interest too.
The starting point is that AI makes attacks cheaper, faster and massively parallel, and can shrink the time to patch a vulnerability from weeks to hours. Instead of chasing perfect protection, the doctrine wants to make defence cheaper and attacks more expensive. Its six recommendations include defining a “minimum viable state” of services that must survive any attack, hardening the national trust backbone with zero-trust architecture, and responding at machine speed. As co-author Tõnu Grünberg put it: “AI must be countered with AI.”
Estonia Says Russian Intelligence Ordered the Milrem Arson
The 15 August fire at Milrem Robotics’ facility in Tallinn’s Lasnamäe district was an act of sabotage ordered by Russian intelligence services, Estonian authorities announced on 29 September. Three Latvian citizens were detained in Latvia in September and extradited to Estonia, and Estonia summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires.
Milrem builds the THeMIS unmanned ground vehicles supplied to Ukraine, and CEO Kuldar Vaarsi says deliveries have not slowed. The Internal Security Service (KAPO) also recommends that companies strengthen their cyber defences, not just their physical security.
Upcoming Events
IKT Aastakonverents 2026
Oct 14 | Tallinn Zoo Environmental Education Centre
Estonia’s annual ICT industry conference, with leaders from ITL, Elisa, CGI, Telia and more.
EstBAN x KPMG Pitch: Defence Tech
Oct 15 | Tallinn
Defence tech startups pitch to investors.
MängudeÖÖ Conference
Oct 16-17 | T1 Venue, Tallinn
Game development conference for Estonian and international studios.
Garage48 Empowering Women Hackathon
Oct 16-18 | kood/Jõhvi
Turn a first business idea into a prototype. No coding experience needed.
Garage48 Future of Wood
Oct 16-18 | Väimela, Võrumaa
Makeathon for new products in the wood and forestry industry.
MängudeÖÖ 2026 (Gaming Party)
Oct 17 | T1 Venue, Tallinn
Estonia’s largest video game party, with esports tournaments, cosplay contest and the Estonian Game of the Year 2026 award.
Tech & God Meetup
Oct 19 | Glazeworks, Ülemiste City
Meetup for Christians working in tech.
Tallinn Data Week
Oct 19-23 | Tallinn
Talks and workshops on data, analytics and AI.
Rail Cyber Resilience Summit
Oct 20-21 | Swissôtel Tallinn
OT security, ERTMS and NIS2 for rail operators.
Deep Tech Delights: EstBAN at Glazeworks
Oct 21 | Glazeworks, Ülemiste City
Networking evening for deep tech, hardware and robotics startups, hosted by EstBAN, Glazeworks and Unicorn Machine.
Youth Startup Summit
Oct 22 | TalTech, Tallinn
Founder and investor stories for students and young founders.
Software Defined Space Conference
Oct 27 | Fotografiska Tallinn
Software and data challenges in the space industry.
Frontier Machines Sessions #03: Defence Tech
Oct 29 | Glazeworks, Ülemiste City
Talks and masterclasses for hardware, robotics and defence tech builders.
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