A minority stake in Banki.ru, one of the largest B2C banking portals on the Russian-language Internet, has changed hands. Finam Global, a Moscow-based investment fund, sold it earlier this month to Russia Partners Technologies, a high tech focused fund run by Russia Partners.
Philipp Ilyin-Adaev, the founder and CEO of Banki.ru, hopes that the involvement of Russia Partners and a focus on innovation will take his company to the next level under its international expansion strategy.
Finam took part in Banki.ru’s Series A round of funding back in 2010, five years after the launch of the online banking project. According to Finam, the investment of an undisclosed amount enabled Banki.ru not only to extend its line of products for advertisers, but also to undertake an international expansion with a number of portals in neighboring Ukraine and Belarus now under its belt.
Banki.ru has evolved over the years into a sector leader with what it claims is a 250,000+ user base and at least 150,000 unique visitors a day. It helps users navigate through everything from currency exchange rates to banking ads to job openings in the sector, and even to banking glossaries.
Finam Global, part of Russia’s Finam Group, focuses on growth capital and buyouts and invests in technology, media and telecommunications companies worldwide.
Russia Partners, a pioneer in private equity investing in Russia and the former Soviet Union, now runs four PE funds and has over $1 billion worth of assets under management. It has approximately 40 total employees in two offices, Moscow and New York.
Source: CNews.ru
