The former head of Russia’s top tech firm Yandex Tigran Khudaverdyan has challenged sanctions against him over the Ukraine war in a European Union court. Khudaverdyan filed a lawsuit on June 7 demanding the European Council lift its “discriminatory and disproportionate” sanctions against him. The lawsuit was first reported by TV channel RTVI on Monday evening. Khudaverdyan quit as Yandex executive …
Arkady Volozh, the founder and CEO of Yandex, has resigned from his company after being included in the EU’s latest package of sanctions on June 3, in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The EU points out Yandex’s responsibility in “promoting state media and narratives in its search results, and deranking and removing content critical of the Kremlin, …
Yet another Yandex woe: company founder and CEO resigns after falling under EU sanctions Read More
In 2021 inDriver, a ride-hailing app founded in Yakutsk, Siberia, back in 2012, announced it had achieved unicorn status. Its valuation reached $1.23 billion, following a funding round of $150 million earlier that year. This startup seemed set to continue its rollout into new locations around the world, including plans to expand into Australia. In …
UK-sanctioned Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov said the Kremlin forced him to sell his stake in a major bank he had founded after he criticized the Ukraine war. Tinkoff Bank, one of Russia’s most impressive success stories in the tech field, has over 20 million customers — making it one of the world’s biggest digital banks. It is …
Yandex, the Russian online search giant — also running a variety of other digital services — is exploring different “strategic options, including disvestment, for its news aggregation service and infotainment platform Zen.” The company stated Friday it intended to “focus on developing its other technology-related businesses and products (including search, advertising, self-driving and cloud) and transactional services (including ride-hailing, e-commerce, …
Caught between Russia’s censorship and West’s sanctions, Yandex seeks to sell assets Read More
The head of Russia’s top technology firm Yandex quit late Tuesday after being slapped with EU sanctions in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Brussels hit Yandex executive director and deputy CEO Tigran Khudaverdyan with an asset freeze and travel ban earlier in the day, citing the firm’s role in “hiding information” from the Russian …
Yandex top executive quits after surprise EU sanctions Read More
Earlier this week Chainalyis published the key findings of their 2021 Geography of Cryptocurrency report. According to this research, Eastern Europe is severely affected by illicit cryptocurrency-related activity. In relative terms, the region is second after Africa in terms of exposure — but its overall crypto economy is much larger than that of Africa. The key findings of this …
Report: Eastern Europe strikingly affected by crypto scams Read More
Aviasales.ru, a leading search engine for flights and hotel bookings, has attracted $43 million from Elbrus Capital and iTech Capital, two PE/VC firms with Russian roots. The latter had already invested $10 million in the company seven years ago, in 2014. The latest capital injection — which is sizable by Russian standards — will help the company launch new …
Aviasales.ru secures $43 million from Elbrus Capital and iTech Capital funds Read More
Earlier this month Green Grey, a Russian-founded publisher of mobile games and apps, announced the launch of NPU Games. This new casual games studio offers co-investment opportunities to back the development of casual games. An initial capital injection of $800,000 was brought by Green Grey itself to develop a pilot project, Cook’s Voyage — a casual …
Russian-founded mobile game publisher launches co-investment vehicle, displays IPO goals Read More
Level.Travel, a Russian platform for searching and booking tours online, has raised $6 million from Moscow-based PE/VC giant Baring Vostok, in exchange for a minority stake. Previous investor Guard Capital, a Moscow-based VC, is keeping its stake in the company’s capital. No further details of the deal were disclosed. Founded ten years ago by Dmitry Malyutin, Ellin …
Baring Vostok invests $6 million in high-tech travel booking platform Read More
The Russian VC firm Leta Capital aims to invest in Russian-speaking tech entrepreneurs across the world. This is a huge pool of talents who left their home countries — including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and some other former Soviet republics — to establish themselves in Western Europe, the USA and other geographies. According to Leta Capital’s in-house research, “more …
Leta Capital eyes “17,000 Russian-speaking tech entrepreneurs” based in the West Read More
StartupBlink has just released the 2021 edition of its Startup Ecosystem Rankings Report, which encompasses 1,000 cities and 100 countries across the world. Unsurprisingly, the US leads the country ranking, far ahead of any other country. Then come the UK, Israel, Canada, Germany and Sweden — immediately followed by China. Ranked 7th, China has blazed its way …
StartupBlink: Moscow city ranks #2 in Europe for startup ecosystem development Read More
