Earlier this year, investigators for Silicon Valley security company FireEye Inc. visited a U.S. firm to determine who, and what, sneaked into the firm’s network harboring military secrets. There they found what they call a sophisticated cyberweapon, able to evade detection and hop between computers walled off from the Internet. The spy tool was programmed on Russian-language …
Artem Kulizhnikov, founder of a startup designed to help musicians annotate music, is packing his bags to leave Moscow in December. His destination: Dubai or Singapore, where he sees a better chance of securing funding for his second company. “Russian venture-capital funds want to invest their money only in Russia, but we want to build an international business and …
Russian brain drain saps talent as sanctions hit financing Read More
Although information technology was once the darling of Russia’s innovation sector, a sanctions-flecked economic slowdown is pushing manufacturing and biomedicine startups to the fore — and thankfully the results are more “Star Trek” than “Star Wars.” At a startup contest at last week’s Open Innovations Forum organized by the Russian Venture Company and Moscow’s Center for Innovative Development, inventors of robotized industrial solutions and new biomedical products took most of the …
Russia’s biotech innovations are more Star Trek than Star Wars Read More
Yandex analysts recently compiled data to assess the top digital advertising categories. Generally speaking, the top industries include travel, fashion, financial services, medical services, and automobiles. These major industries that have a strong online presence actually vary when it comes to specific categories within these industries. Two of the major travel industry categories, hotels and …
Russia’s top 10 digital advertising categories revealed Read More
With a decades-long history of being one of the countries where online music has been mostly pirated, Russia is now seeing the emergence of music services that offer users a legal way to stream tracks. Spotify is on its way to the country, and local services are gearing up towards acquiring a bigger audience with new features and tailor-made offers …
Can Spotify and new local services drive Russian music fans to the right side of the law? Read More
Among the adult Russian Internet population the prevailing groups are women, individuals younger than 35 years of age and inhabitants of western federal districts of Russia. Over one-third of Russian Internet users have vocational education – according to analysis made by international Internet data provider Gemius in July 2014. Research shows that every fourth member …
Russian Internet users are most often females, young, and live in western Russia Read More
Total sales of IT products and services in Russia were worth 711.6 billion rubles (€16.8 billion) in 2013, which is 0.5% less than the figure for the previous period. The IT market in the country declined for the first time since the crisis of 2009. Many leading players reported a contraction in their sales revenue …
IT market in Russia 2014 – Current situation and short term outlook Read More
On October 1st, the Russian Security Council will discuss issues of internet protection in emergency situations, such as military action or mass protests inside the country. In addition, the possibility of handing over domain administration functions to the state will be considered. While the Kremlin insists that the main purpose of the meeting is to …
Russian IT companies called the issue of import substitution in IT as the key subject in the industry in 2014. This verdict was reached by the participants of the media briefing “Focus on import substitution: chance or risk for Russian IT industry?” that was held on September 9 in Moscow as part of the 15th anniversary …
Venture investment volumes in Russia fell by 9% year-on-year (y-o-y) as the number of completed deals increased by 32% in Q2 2014, says Rye, Man and Gor Securities (RMG), an independent Moscow-based investment company, in their latest quarterly report published with the participation of East-West Digital News. 2014 continues to be a difficult year for …
Twelve months ago at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Russia had its very own ‘pavilion’ on Startup Alley featuring some of Skolkovo’s best projects. How times have changed… This year Stanislav Sazhin, CEO of social network for health professionals, “Doctor at Work”, commented that “last year there was a whole crowd from Russia. This year it …
TC Disrupt winners – “pale imitations of Russian startups?” Read More
In early August, the App Store updated its Made in Russia section. Russian developers’ applications are often highly regarded. There is a special App Store catalogue listing them. But not all applications in the App Store collection originated in Russia. Formally, some of them were created by Russian companies’ offices abroad. The bulk of the …
