With a population of only 1.3 million, Estonia is at the forefront globally in terms of unicorns. One of those promising future unicorns is Skeleton Technologies, which has maximised its business model and niche value, and rapidly accelerated its growth in a competitive market. The company announced a funding round of EUR 41.3 million in November 2020, and another round of EUR 51 million in 2021.

Electraflyer has announced that it has passed crossover, meaning it now sells more battery-electric aircraft than polluting ones. Pipistrel sold over 100 battery-electric aircraft last year as they take over from its traditional offerings. Bye Aerospace does not even make conventional aircraft. With its Tesla-style approach, its order book exceeds 720 battery-electric aircraft evenly split between two and four-seaters.

Both Atlas robots have completed the complex obstacle course flawlessly yesterday. 

But why parkour?

It is explained in Boston Dynamics´s blog: a robot’s ability to complete a backflip may never prove useful in a commercial setting. But it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination or sector-specific knowledge to see why it would be helpful for Atlas to be able to perform the same range of movements and physical tasks as humans. If robots can eventually respond to their environments with the same level of dexterity as the average adult human, the range of potential applications will be practically limitless. 

See the video here:

DHL Express, the world’s leading express service provider, and Eviation, the Seattle-area based global manufacturer of all-electric aircraft, today write aviation history in announcing that DHL is the first to order 12 fully electric Alice eCargo planes from Eviation. With this engagement DHL aims to set up an unparalleled electric Express network and make a pioneering step into a sustainable aviation future. Eviation’s Alice is the world’s leading fully electric aircraft, which enables airlines – both cargo and passenger – to operate a zero-emission fleet. Eviation expects to deliver the Alice electric aircraft to DHL Express in 2024.

Volta Trucks, the leading start-up electric commercial vehicle manufacturer, has revealed the first running prototype chassis of the Volta Zero – the world’s first purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne commercial vehicle designed specifically for inner city logistics. This major milestone in the company’s journey has been achieved at industry-leading pace.

Carbon Robotics, an autonomous robotics company, unveiled its third-generation autonomous weed elimination robots. The Autonomous Weeder leverages robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and laser technology to safely and effectively drive through crop fields to identify, target and eliminate weeds.

Unlike other weeding technologies, the robots utilize high-power lasers to eradicate weeds through thermal energy, without disturbing the soil. The automated robots allow farmers to use less herbicides and reduce labor to remove unwanted plants while improving the reliability and predictability of costs, crop yield and more.

Longensis, a startup based in Latvia and Hong Hong, has taken home the main prize at TechChill – 10,000 EUR, no strings attached. Gelatex and VREACH divide 250,000 EUR in angel investment from the pan-Baltic syndicate. The leading Baltic tech and startup event brought together over 1,700 attendees from over 600 different organizations from 29 countries, with 178 speakers taking the virtual stage.

Longenesis is a B2B startup offering a platform to biomedical organizations to reduce the length of clinical trials. This is done through enabling direct communication for safe data curation and compliant, consent-enabled biomedical data utilization for research. 

Nokia has announced further details after being named by NASA as a partner to advance “Tipping Point” technologies for the Moon, deploying the first LTE/4G communications system in space and helping pave the way towards sustainable human presence on the lunar surface.

Nokia Bell Labs’ pioneering innovations will be used to build and deploy the first ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened, end-to-end LTE solution on the lunar surface in late 2022. Nokia is partnering with Intuitive Machines for this mission to integrate this groundbreaking network into their lunar lander and deliver it to the lunar surface. The network will self-configure upon deployment and establish the first LTE communications system on the Moon.  

The Estonian government's e-Residency programme, pioneer of the world's first digital residency initiative, today announced the launch of four new international 'pick-up points', including Singapore, Bangkok, São Paulo and Johannesburg. With two new locations in Southeast Asia, this expansion comes at a time where there is increased demand from entrepreneurs and tech talent in the region to scale their business internationally. Singapore in particular, as a hotbed for innovation and talent, has gained a huge appeal to digital nomads who are capitalising on today's remote work models to start a business from anywhere.

For the first time ever, TechChill, the leading and probably 2021's only startup event in the Baltics, is throwing the doors open to the world on May 20-21. Anyone, anywhere, will have the chance to take a look into the inner workings of the most startup-friendly region of the world.

TechChill will be held digitally, making it possible for anyone to access the event that previously has been restricted to those ready to travel. As the only major startup event of 2021, this is the best chance for others to take a peek into how this region fosters an environment of innovation to continually put out startup heavyweights.