Rejecting an appeal from the US company, a Moscow municipal court confirmed today an earlier court decision to consider LinkedIn as violating the Russian legislation on personal data storage. The news has just been reported by the Russian news agency Interfax. As a consequence, the telecom regulator Roskomnadzor — which had initiated the legal procedure against LinkedIn — will require operators …
Today Mail.ru Group, a leading, LSE-listed Russian Internet company, announced the acquisition Delivery Club, the number one food delivery company in Russia owned by Rocket Internet’s Foodpanda. The Russian group is acquiring 100% of Delivery Club for $100 million in an all cash transaction, with 90% of the amount to be paid in November and the remaining part …
Mail.ru Group acquires Rocket Internet’s Russian food delivery business for $100 million Read More
Roskomnadzor, the Russian telecom and Internet regulator, has initiated a legal procedure to block access to LinkedIn from Russia, should the US site not comply with the new legislation on personal data storage. This legislation, which came into force in September 2015, requires to store Russian citizens’ personal data only in databases located on Russia territory (see white paper by EWDN and EY). Many …
Russia urges LinkedIn to comply with personal data legislation Read More
Yesterday Mail.ru Group, a major Russian Internet company, announced the acquisition of Moscow-based mobile game developer and publisher Pixonic. The LSE-listed group has acquired 100% of the company for $30 million in cash, including $20 million upfront and $10 million deferred and based on performance indicators. Gaming is one of the key activities of the group, whose …
Mail.ru Group acquires mobile game firm Pixonic for $30 million Read More
The London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is considering to resume operations in Russia starting from next year, according local media reports. The bank’s shareholders might take their decision (positive or negative) in December or January, online publication Gazeta.ru wrote last week, referring to “an unnamed source close to the bank.” Contacted by …
Global Venture Alliance (GVA), a Moscow-headquartered provider of business services, training programs and seed funding for startups, has teamed up with the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), a major tech business incubator based in Mumbai, to launch the ‘India-Russia Bridge for Innovations’ (IRBI). As reported by BW Disrupt, an Indian online publication, the IRBI program enjoys the financial …
After Prisma, the much-hyped mobile app that instantly transforms pictures into artwork, and Artisto, a similar app for videos, Russian programmers are affirming their particular talent in developing technologies inspired by neural networks. This time, this approach is being applied to food recommendations with ‘Borsch,’ a new mobile service launched over the past weeks in …
Russian programmers launch neural network-based food discovery app in US cities Read More
Earlier this month Vostok New Ventures, an invesment company listed on Nasdaq Stockholm (formerly known as Vostok Nafta Investment), has injected an additional $2.5 million in Moscow-based online travel agency Onetwotrip.com. This transaction was announced in the company’s H1 2016 activity report, which was published last week. The Swedish fund had already invested $4 million in …
Swedish fund Vostok New Ventures injects $2.5 million in Moscow-based OTA Onetwotrip Read More
Since its launch last year with several millions of US dollars in funding, Ordynets [Russian for ‘member of the Golden Horde’] is emerging as a leading ad network on the Russian social media scene. The network claims to have acquired more than 200 significant communities, which gather some 150 million subscribers. In addition, Ordynets works with more than 5,300 …
New platform facilitates advertising campaigns in Russian social media Read More
Last week Mail.ru Group, a major, LSE-listed Russian Internet group, released Artisto, an app which allows users to edit short videos, processing them in the style of famous artworks or any other source image. Using a neural network-inspired technology, the app is now available globally on the App Store and Google Play. Artisto now processes 10-second videos and offers 14 filters to …
On the steps of Prisma: Mail.Ru Group applies neural network technologies to videos Read More
SBT Venture Capital, the venture arm of Russian state-controlled savings bank Sberbank, appears to be among the participants in Uber’s latest equity funding round. Led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, this $3.5 billion deal took place this spring, valuing the US startup at $62.5 billion. SBT’s participation was revealed by BNE Intellinews, an online …
Russia’s Sberbank participated in Uber’s latest equity round Read More
VisionLabs, a Russian startup specializing in facial recognition, data analysis and robotics, announced today that it has secured 350 million rubles ($5.5 million at the current exchange rate) from Sistema Venture Capital. The fund received a 25% stake, valuing the startup at 1.4 billion rubles ($21.5 million). Founded in 2012, VisionLabs has developed a software package, named ‘Luna,’ …
