On April 11 Skolkovo, the international tech hub on the outskirts of Moscow, will host the second edition of the Corporate Innovations conference. This year’s motto is “NextTech for business,” with an emphasis on digitalization tools that concretely help businesses address their challenges. Top managers of corporate giants – including Russian Railways, Rostec, AstraZeneca, Mail.ru Group, VTB …
Sberbank, the giant state-controlled financial institution, has made a new step to extend activities to ever-new fields. Presented just days ago, ‘Business Travel’ helps the bank’s corporate clients organize business trips, buy rail and air tickets, or book hotel rooms. The business trip documents required under Russian legislation – such as the ‘letter of assignment’ …
Sberbank launches corporate travel booking service with all-electronic document flow Read More
Mail.ru Group, the LSE-listed Russian Internet giant, and VEB Innovations, a venture fund launched by Vnesheconombank in 2011 to support innovative projects, have registered a joint venture in the field of computer technologies. The new entity, “Razvitaya.ru LLC” is listed in official registries as a company providing, in particular, “consulting” and “works” related to “computer technologies.” The …
Mail.Ru Group and VEB Innovations launch computer technology joint venture Read More
Last week IXcellerate, a leading commercial data center operator in Russia, announced a five-year $260 million investment plan. The funding will be provided by the company’s shareholders as well as bank financing and an additional injection of “foreign capital.” By 2023, according to this plan, the company will operate the existing Moscow One Datacentre and run “at least four …
IXcellerate and Rostelecom plan to invest massively in Russian data centers Read More
Gazprom-Media, Russia’s largest Russian media holding and a subsidiary of Gazprom, has led a $2 million funding round for Catery. This Moscow-based catering startup, launched in 2016, organizes deliveries to corporate clients. It operates in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Rostov-upon-Don and Nizhny Novgorod, based on partnerships with more than 500 restaurants. According to a Catery …
Gazprom Media and US investor back catering startup from Moscow Read More
Get Transfer, a car rental startup with Russian roots operating internationally, has raised $8 million in total since early 2018, with a last capital injection of $3 million this month. The main investors are two international funds with Eastern European managers, Emery Capital and Castel Capital, and Russian airline S7 Group. The latest deal valued Get Transfer at …
Russian-founded startup raised $8 million to develop car rental services across the world Read More
Tech investment volumes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia were modest last year, if compared with the Chinese, US or Western European markets. However, 2018 was marked by giant corporate deals involving international players while a series of smaller venture transactions illustrated the diversity of the regional startup scene. In this review, which encompasses Russia, …
2018 Eastern Europe and Central Asia Tech Investment Overview Read More
In what could be a world’s first, Azbuka Vkusa, a major grocery chain with more than 170 outlets across Russia, and its partner Sberbank, the state-owned banking giant, have launched what they call a “perfect fingerprint payment service.” The service is not entirely new: so far, the chain’s customers could use fingerprints to pay from …
In Russian supermarkets, consumers can settle purchases with their fingerprint Read More
Parallels, a global leader in cross-platform solutions founded in 2000, has been acquired by the Canadian software giant Corel. As a result, “Corel now offers the complete Parallels product line as part of its industry-leading software portfolio,” according to a corporate statement published Dec. 20. Parallels’ products – including its popular software for running Windows on Mac …
Corel acquires leading cross-platform solution publisher Parallels Read More
Nearly one year after Yandex launched its AI-driven voice assistant Alice, two other major players are preparing to release their own intelligent assistants. Competition is coming from Yandex’s archrival Mail.Ru Group, which is reportedly developing a concept combining a voice assistant and a smart speaker. Dubbed ‘Marusya,’ this product is being designed for potential integration …
‘Alice,’ ‘Marusya,’ ‘Oleg:’ Voice assistants and smart speakers take off in Russia Read More
Waves, a Blockchain solutions developer founded by a Russian team and incorporated in Switzerland, has secured $120 million to develop its project Vostok. Designed for large enterprises and public institutions, this private blockchain platform “lies at the intersection of several disruptive technologies, including blockchain, Big Data, artificial intelligence and the industrial Internet-of-Things,” according to Waves founder Alexander (Sasha) Ivanov. …
As the Russian e-commerce market is entering a new growth and concentration cycle, the joint venture formed by Yandex and Sberbank, launched two online marketplaces over the past few weeks. One of them, dubbed ‘Beru’ (“I’ll take it”), became fully operational in early November, after five months of beta testing. The platform features “over 1,000 retailers and …
Yandex and Sberbank launch two marketplaces, aim for e-commerce leadership Read More
