East-West Digital News

Russian mobile major MTS acquires blockchain trade finance platform

July 30, 2021 August 3, 2021

MTS, a leading mobile operator and provider of digital services and content, has acquired a 51% stake in blockchain-based trade finance platform Factorin. The two year-old company touts itself as “the biggest factoring platform in Russia andone of the leading B2B blockchain systems for trade finance in the world.” Founded by Andrei Maklin with support from venture builder Digital Horizon — …

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Russian-founded graphene nanotube leader valued at $2 billion, inks investment agreement with Daikin

July 29, 2021 August 4, 2021

OCSiAl, the Russian-founded global graphene nanotube leader, has inked an investment and business cooperation agreement with Japanese giant Daikin Industries. The companies disclosed OCSiAl’s valuation (“about $2 billion”) but not the terms of the share subscription deal. Pronounced ‘Oxial,’ OCSiAl refers to four chemical elements: oxygen (O), carbon (C), silicon (Si) and aluminum (Al). Touted as the …

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Russian startup raises $9.3 million to develop next-gen radial drilling technology

July 27, 2021 July 26, 2021

Perfobore (also spelt ‘Perfobur’), a Moscow based solution provider for wells completion and stimulation, has closed a $9.3 million Series B round. The funding came from Runtech Ventures — the venture arm of Russian asset management firm RosRegion Razvitie — and from several individual investors including former Schlumberger VP Vladimir Kuksov. Founded in 2013, Perfobore performed …

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Facebook launches its C2C classifieds platform in Russia

July 26, 2021 July 26, 2021

Facebook has launched its C2C classifieds platform, dubbed ‘Marketplace,’ in Russia, reports the news agency TASS. Anna-Maria Treneva, Regional Director of Facebook, Instagram and Messenger in Russia was quoted as saying: “We know that many people are already using our platforms to look for and exchange goods. Marketplace will become a convenient platform for people, where it …

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Russian GetCourse secures $50 million from top investors, expects to generate $1 billion in GMV this year

July 26, 2021 July 26, 2021

Baring Vostok, the Russian PE/VC giant, Winter Capital, a Moscow-based international fund backed, in particular, by billionaire Vladimir Potanin, and Goldman Sachs have invested $50 million in GetCourse. This Russian edtech startup allows its customers — more than 20,000 schools, trainers, coaches and bloggers — to create, deliver, promote and sell their own educational content. The service, which …

Russian GetCourse secures $50 million from top investors, expects to generate $1 billion in GMV this year Read More

Baring Vostok invests $6 million in high-tech travel booking platform

July 21, 2021 July 22, 2021

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 …

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The SPAC wave hits Russia

July 20, 2021 February 16, 2022

Could a company from Russia, or with strong connections to Russia, ever be targeted by a SPAC? The question remained open until very recently, given the small numbers of international IPOs from Russia — the latest example in the digital field being Ozon in November last year. Such a player has now emerged, with Nexters …

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Russian startup Welldone backed by domestic investors in burgeoning meat alternative market

July 19, 2021 July 19, 2021

Welldone, a Russian artificial meat startup founded last year, has secured $1.5 million from two local funds. These investors are Lever VC, the venture arm of agroindustrial major GrainRus, and Phystech Ventures, a fund launched by top Moscow science institute. Forbes Russia heard that Welldone’s valuation could be in the range of $5 million to $7 million. …

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Moscow city creates heat map of taxi rides

July 16, 2021 July 16, 2021

The Moscow city authorities are introducing ‘PROtraffic,’ a heat map [data visualization technique — editor] showing the magnitude of a taxi traffic in the city, based on data from the mobile apps of taxi service aggregators. Intended to “help solve a number of transport problems in the capital,” this online service shows taxi ride distribution across the city by …

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Annoying LinkedIn networkers are actually Russian hackers spreading zero-days, Google says

July 15, 2021 July 15, 2021

Most LinkedIn spam is just annoying. But new research from Google suggests some of it was outright dangerous: Russian government hackers targeted European government officials with LinkedIn messages that contained malicious links designed to exploit unknown vulnerabilities in Windows and iOS, according to Google’s report. Google’s Threat Analysis Group published new research on Wednesday, detailing …

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The Untitled raises €100 million to relocate tech startups from Eastern Europe to Western jurisdictions

July 14, 2021 December 31, 2021

The Untitled, a Russian venture firm established in 2013, has raised €100 million for a new, London-based vehicle (‘The Untitled Ventures’) that will target startups relocating from countries of the former Soviet Union. This is twice as much as the initial target (€50 million) announced by the firm last year. “Russia and neighboring countries feature world-class programmers and high quality startups,” The …

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Zerion secures $8.2 million to make decentralized finance accessible to all

July 14, 2021 July 14, 2021

Last week Zerion, a Californian decentralized finance (DeFi) startup with Russian and Ukrainian founders, announced the completion of a $8.2 million round. Led by Mosaic Ventures, the deal also involved Placeholder, DCG, Lightspeed, Blockchain.com Ventures and other organizations — as well as a dozen of individual investors from the crypto community. Zerion touts its investing app as “the simplest way to track and manage …

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