The Blackmoon Crypto Platform, which presents itself as “a one-stop solution for asset managers to create and manage legally compliant tokenized funds,” has raised over $20 million in just one day through an ICO launched on September 12. On September 1, the startup raised $10 million through a pre-order campaign which started on August 5. …
This past Tuesday VEB, a major state-owned Russian development bank, signed a partnership agreement with the Ethereum Foundation to develop and implement Blockchain-based government applications. The Foundation’s founder Vitalik Buterin and VEB President Sergey Gorokov Chairman both took part in the signing ceremony, which was held during a Blockchain conference in Kazan, the capital of the innovation-friendly …
Illustrating the growing interest of Russian corporations in online education, Severgroup, a group of companies controlled by steel magnate Alexey Mordashov, has just acquired a 40% stake in Netology Group. The shares were sold by previous Netology investors, the Russian funds Buran Venture Capital and InVenture Partners, which fully exited the company. The financial terms of the deal have not …
Russian billionaire invests more than $20 million in online education platform Read More
According to a resolution published last week, the Russian government intends to create an IT and telecom infrastructure for driverless transport across the country’s roads and highways. According to the plan, the rollout will start with large cities as well as the north-south and east-west transport corridors. Artificial intelligence solutions will be used in public …
Russia prepares to develop high-tech infrastructure for driverless transport Read More
The Russian government is likely to hire the services of Mail.Ru Group, a leading Internet group, to boost voter turnout in next year’s presidential election, the business publication RBC reported Wednesday. The authorities bet such a digital strategy is likely designed to dispel concerns about a weak mandate for Russia’s next president. According to RBC, a …
Yandex, the NASDAQ-listed Russian search giant, and Sberbank, Russia’s state-owned national savings bank, announced today their plans to join forces and create “a leading e-commerce ecosystem” based on the Yandex.Market e-commerce marketplace. The deal, if confirmed, would mark the biggest e-commerce investment in Russia’s history. According to a non-binding term sheet — which will ultimately be …
The legislation adopted last year in Russia to strengthen state control over digital communications is not fully compatible with the new EU regulation in the field of personal data protection, believe Russian experts interviewed by the business daily Vedomosti and East-West Digital News. Such a contradiction, if confirmed, would expose Russian mobile operators to considerable …
As global fintech investment might reach new heights this year, Russian players are in the game with several Moscow-based firms announcing plans to invest massively in this industry. Thus two asset management companies, Fintech Capital and Da Vinci Capital, are launching a $200 million debt finance fund for fintech companies. FinTech Capital is owned by ID …
Russian funds launch giant investment programs on the global fintech scene Read More
Two major investors from Russia and Belarus have just injected $25 million in Capital.com, a trading app that is similar to Robinhood in the US or Trading212 in Europe — but with a specific AI-powered function that provides users with tailored content based on behavioral analysis. Dubbed ’Smart Feed’ and scheduled for launch next month, this AI function analyzes user …
AI-enhanced mobile trading app raises $25 million from Eastern Europe Read More
Yandex.Taxi, the taxi service of Russian Internet giant Yandex, and Uber have agreed to merge their businesses in Russia and neighboring countries Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan. Should it receive regulatory approvals the transaction is scheduled for completion in late 2017, stated Yandex. [Update: the merger was cleared in Nov. 2017] “This deal is a testament …
Uber and Yandex.taxi announce plans to merge in Eastern Europe into a $3.7 billion company Read More
Last month this Russian B2C e-commerce marketplace shut down, putting an end to a long agony. Launched in 2008 by Stanford graduates Maxim Faldin and Kamil Kurmakaev, Wikimart had the initial ambition to create a Russian analog of eBay. The project was heavily funded by Western investors, with Tiger Global Management investing some $30 million …
After almost three years of fall or stagnation, Western retailers’ sales to Russian online consumers are resuming – in certain cases dramatically. This new trend was discussed earlier this month at the Global E-Commerce Summit in Barcelona in a special Russia round table, where Russian and international players shared their most recent sales data. Thus ASOS …
Western e-commerce companies see cross-border sales to Russia resume dramatically Read More
