Professionali.ru, the second largest Russian professional social network after Yandex’s MoiKrug, announced it has raised $2.5 million from Open Capital, a London-based venture capital fund investing in Russia and other former Soviet states.
The news has been reported by Unova, a Russian website specializing in local innovation and venture news.
The startup received over 20 propositions from Russian and foreign investors. It chose Open Capital because the fund “valued the company by taking into account its prospects and development potential,” according to Nikolai Gabyshev, managing partner at Pollyanna Capital, the financial consultancy that organized the deal.
The fund has received a stake of between 20% and 25%, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported from unnamed sources.
Founded in 2008, Professionali.ru claims over 1.8 million members. Its traffic amounts to 630,000 unique visitors per month, compared with MoiKrug’s 1 million and E-xecutive.ru’s 370,000 (sources: TNS, comScore, and LiveInternet.ru, respectively). MoiKrug is owned by Yandex, Russia’s search giant. Another competitor is world leader LinkedIn, even though LinkedIn offers no Russian-language version and generates just 1.1% of its traffic in Russia, according to Chessplains.com. Viadeo, another important international player, is practically absent from the market.
The founders have invested $2 million in the project since its creation. In April last year, British businessman Nick Lockett acquired a minority stake, valuing the company at $9.4 million. The site is just break-even, with revenues amounting to approximately $1 million in 2010, according to Vedomosti’s sources.
Vedomosti reports a conflict between founders of the site Sergey Borisov, the current CEO, and Nikita Khalyavin, who quit the project in late 2010.
