Ru-Net, a major, internationally-oriented Russian fund, has just participated in a €10 million Series B financing round for Cuponation, a Germany-based discount platform. Rocket Internet, Holtzbrink Ventures, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), e.ventures, Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments (DTSI), Silicon Valley Bank and Columbia Lake Partners have also participated in the round in undisclosed proportions.
Cuponation collects all available coupons, discounts and deals from online stores into one website, enabling customers to save on their everyday online shopping. The company currently operates in more than 20 countries with discounts from over 25 000 online stores and brands, including Amazon, Asos, Zalando and Domino’s.
Founded by in 2012 by German entrepreneurs Gerhard Trautmann, Adrian Renner and Andreas Fruth, the company launched its first platform in September 2012 in India. Since then, Cuponation has entered markets across five continents with the most recent opening being in Mexico in November 2015. The company is headquartered in Munich, Germany and has further offices in Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, São Paulo, New Delhi and Moscow.
Almost simultaneously Berlin-based long-term rental startup Nestpick announced that it raised $2 million from Russia’s Target Global (previously know as Target Ventures) and Switzerland’s B-to-V Partners.
Following up a $11 million Series A investment last month, this additional capital injection will help the startup “significantly improve customer experience in 2016.”
“Today, finding a reasonably priced apartment in a big city is an unreasonably hard and painful task. There is no one you can trust, and in many cases, real estate agents take huge commissions and provide poor quality. The long/mid term rental market lacks transparency and efficiency, and there has been no real disruption in this space since classifieds,” said Eugene Levin of Target Global, referring to the market needs addressed by Netspick.
Russian money goes global
Ru-Net is backed by Leonid Boguslavsky, a figure on the Russian and international high-tech scene. Like many other funds with Russian backers or Russian management, Ru-Net has become more active outside Russia than within. Thus, over the past few years the fund has invested in Indian mobile recharge platform Freecharge (from which it exited earlier this year) as well as in several Indian e-commerce projects (most recently PepperTap).
Ru-Net has also invested in Turkey (Lidyana.com), Singapore (Zalora.com), the UK (Made.com, Payeleven) to name just a few of its portfolio companies. Its German portfolio include Auctionata and DeliveryHero.
Having invested several times in Germany, Target Global also exemplifies the globalization of Russian venture funds. In early 2014 the fund took part in Delivery Hero’s $88 million Series E round. In November 2014, it led a €20 million round for international cruise booking portal Dreamlines. The fund successfully exited from Fyber, a Berlin-based mobile ad solution publisher which was acquired by South Korea’s RTNS Media for $190 million in October 2014.
Target Global’s portfolio also includes such Russian startups as Eventbrite clone TimePad, online retailer Babadu.ru and online confectionary shop MixVille.ru.
Launched in 2013, Target Global — which claims over $300 million in assets under management — operates from its offices in San Francisco, Berlin and Moscow. Its backers are “private Russian individuals who wish to invest in [western markets] in order to diversify their investment portfolio,” said the fund’s managing partner Mike Lobanov in an exchange with East-West Digital News a few months ago. None of these LPs are connected to Russian government circles, or targeted by the western sanctions, Lobanov specified in interviews with Russian media.
