Earlier this week Mail.Ru Group, an LSE-listed leading Russian Internet company, announced that its ad platform myTarget began accepting Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin cash (BCH) as payment means for running ads on the group’s properties. These properties include Russia’s top social networks Vkontakte (VK) and Onoklassniki (OK) as well as two dozens of online resources …
Ozon Holdings, one of the most established Russian e-commerce companies, — sometimes dubbed, with some exaggeration, ‘the Russian Amazon,’ — will receive 3.5 billion rubles and possibly up to 5.25 billion ($61 million and up to $92 million at the current exchange rate) from its existing shareholders. The better part of the capital injection will …
Russian e-commerce appeal: Ozon shareholders to inject up to $92 million in the company Read More
The Russian ICO frenzy – which marked last year with more than 130 ICOs and pre-ICOs conducted by companies with Russian roots, some 10% of the global numbers, according to data collected by ICObench and EWDN – is going on, with fundraising successes announced every week in a variety of fields. Thus BioCoin, which touts itself …
eSports, video surveillance, “green economy:” The Russian ICO frenzy continues Read More
Sergey Solonin, co-founder of Qiwi, a major NASDAQ-listed Russian e-payment operator, confimed that he personally invested Telegram’s ICO private presale. The Russian businessman revealed this investment informally during the Russian Investment Forum, an international business event which is taking place these days in Sochi on the Black Sea. [Update Feb. 26: Among the other Russian …
Yandex, the NASDAQ-listed Russian search giant, and Uber announced today the completion of the merger of their respective ride-sharing and food delivery businesses in Russia and neighboring countries. The deal, announced in July last year, was approved by the Russian antimonopoly authority in November. At closing, Uber invested $225 million and Yandex invested $100 million …
Yandex and Uber complete merger in Russia and neighboring countries Read More
The beginning of this year saw major moves on the Russian eSports scene, a sizable European market with established players operating globally. Thus, last week Mail.Ru Group — an LSE-listed Internet company which controls the largest Russian-language social networks and a range of online gaming companies — announced the full acquisition of ESforce. This company, …
2 acquisitions and 1 ICO: the Russian eSports market is heating up Read More
Baring Vostok has invested an undisclosed amount in online education platform Skyeng, with specializes in English teaching. Confirming the deal, a Baring Vostok representative told Russian business daily Kommersant that the fund acquired a minority stake. Skyeng, a Moscow-based startup launched in 2012, claims to have generated 725 million rubles (around $12.5 million) in revenue last …
December 22, 2017 could go down as a turning point in the history of the Belarusian economy. That day, the country’s president Alexander Lukashenko signed a law “On the Development of a Digital Economy” which introduces thorough changes in the legislation, aiming to liberalize the high tech sector in the country. A variety of activities …
Last week Sberbank, Russia’s national savings bank, the Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF, or FRII, Russia’s largest early-stage startup investment fund) and FortRoss Ventures (formerly known as Money Time) announced the launch of a platform called Global Pitch to help Russian tech entrepreneurs develop in the USA. Global Pitch expects to introduce dozens of Russian …
From ‘TechMafia’ to ‘Hack Temple,’ Russian investors nurture startups in Silicon valley Read More
Leaked files have just highlighted the connections of Yuri Milner, a top Russian-born international tech investor, with a Russian state-controlled financial institution. While seeing in these connections “a long Kremlin arm,” the international journalist consortium which analyzed these files omitted to point out many other cases of Russian money fuelling powerful tech companies in the US and elsewhere. However, …
Artificial intelligence tends to find applications in virtually every field today, and HR is no exception. A Russian startup called Stafory, launched two years ago with less than $10,000 in capital, has created a recruiting robot called ‘Vera’ (‘faith’ in Russian). Stafory initially developed an online platform intended for companies to interact more efficiently with …
This robot is entering the US market after automating recruitment in 220 Russian companies Read More
In this Blockchain era where technology promises to digitize virtually any type of assets, the emergence of gold-backed tokens is no surprise. The concept is not new, but we are now witnessing its first applications. One of these projects is propelled by Goldmint, a company with Russian roots now preparing for its ICO and the …
“As good as gold:” This Russian-designed token aims to tackle cryptocurrency volatility Read More
