Mashable ranks Russia’s “20 hottest startups”

The famous tech publication Mashable has published its selection of Russia’s 20 “hottest startups.” According to the site, “Russia is gradually becoming a place where its undoubtedly strong education and engineering standards are blending with original entrepreneurship.”

In addition to Skolkovo in the Moscow region, Mashable highlights that “in St. Petersburg and the lesser-known cities of Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Chelyabinsk, companies are emerging that will define the future state of Russia’s economy.”

The List

1. VKontakte (VK.com) – Russia’s largest social network claims more than 100 million active users and 50 million daily views.
2. Vizerra – This Moscow-based project develops 3D applications for city planning, construction projects, product design and virtual tourism.
3. JSC Mostkom – A startup from Ryazan in Central Russia that creates wireless optical communications equipment.
4. Penxy – The Penxy iOS app, which was released this past June, allows for one-tap streaming and recording of live presentations.
5. Choister is a service that helps search, analyze and compare all available educational programs and also offers an intelligent real estate search system.
6. Ometria – This Anglo-Russian startup organizes and analyzes e-commerce data to help attract customers.
7. Ecwid – Based in Ulyanovsk in the Urals, this micro e-commerce startup has developed a cloiud-based micro e-commerce solution that has been adopted by moer than 350,000 users in 174 countries. The Ecwid shopping widget can be embedded into any webpage, blog, or page on Facebook.
8. Kuznech – This award-winning St. Petersburg based startup is developing a technology for indexing and comparing billions of images online, using a 150-parameter statistical algorithm.
9. Gitoon is a user-generated publishing platform that decreases time spent searching online for content.
10. Visible Nation – This Anglo-Russian startup offers social data comparison and allows users to accurately share information and big data.
11. Oktogo – Featuring more than 350,000 hotels worldwide, this online hotel booking site has raised more than $26 million in the past three years and recently acquired information portal Travel.ru.
12. Zingaya – This US-Russian CRM solution provider offers browser-based phone calls through any computer with no download or phone necessary.
13. Gruzobzor – A provider of online solutions for cargo freight, Gruzobzor enable shippers and freight forwarders to share electronic documents and communicate in real-time, sparing the hassle of using printers, faxes or phone calls while exchanging information.
14. 2GIS is a startup from Novosibirsk that develops electronic directory guides and 3D Maps for Russia cities and other European countries and has 22 million registered users.
15. Wheely – This startup allows customers to order high-end taxi service.
16. Ostrovok – A hotel booking service that has raised more than $40 million in the past three years but that cut a third of its staff earlier this year.
17. Bloom.fm – This music-streaming service has more than 500,000 registered users.
18. Chelyabinsk’s Avimoto allows users to create video products by uploading photos and videos and adding text and music.
19. Doroga TV – This Nizhny Novgorod vehicle-tracking GPS service is used by the Metropolitan Transit Authority in NYC.
20. Langprism – A global translation project based in Krasnoyarsk.