Runa Capital, a Moscow-based international venture fund, has invested $5 million in the educational startup at an undisclosed valuation.
Dnevnik.ru was established in 2007 as a free, nationwide school network. The site currently serves 21,000 Russian and Ukrainian schools, attracting over 4 million pupils, parents, teachers, and school administrators – up 1 million in the past 9 months.
The site offers realtime information about class schedules, grades, and homework assignments, an electronic document exchange platform, a large educational resource center, as well as a range of social networking and messaging functions.
Last January, the site was honored as one of the of the best e-learning and educational websites at the UN’s World Summit Award 2011. In August, the startup became a resident company of Skolkovo, the state-sponsored tech hub nearing completion just outside of Moscow.
The funds will be used to develop additional services, mobile applications and a unique system of content cataloging and distribution. In addition, the St. Petersburg-based startup plans to launch local versions in Israel, Hungary, Poland, China, and the US in 2012-2013, with a target to serve 100 million users “as soon as possible.”
“Our biggest competitors on the international scene are Edmodo, Schoology, Blackboard and Moodle,” Dnevnik.ru General Manager Gabriel Levi acknowledged in an exchange with East West Digital News. “But we can rely on the support of Runa’s highly professional team. We will be glad to work collaboratively with regional partners with expertise in IT and education as well as school-related distribution channels and networks.”
In 2011, Dnevnik.ru attracted $1.7 million from Russian fund Prostor Capital.
