Phystech Ventures, a fund with Russian roots, has taken part in a funding round of 1.5 million Singaporean dollars (approximately $1.1 million) for Teamie, a social mobile learning platform operating Asia Pacific. The round was led by ACP, a Singapore-based venture capital firm, with Spring Seeds Capital and an undisclosed individual investor also taking part …
Phystech Ventures backs Singapore-based edtech startup Teamie Read More
The FindFace mobile app, which makes it possible to find a random person’s social-media page on Vkontakte after taking a photo of them in the street, has made news headlines for its use in experimental art projects and bullying women who appear in pornography. Daniil Turovsky, special correspondent for independent online publication Meduza, sat down with the authors …
Russian service marketplace YouDo.com announced today the completion of a $6.2 million Series C financing round, led by Sistema Venture Capital. Existing investors Flint Capital, United Capital Partners and QIWI shareholder Sergey Solonin also took part in the round. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Launch in 2012, YouDo’s platform matches those …
Russian service marketplace YouDo raises $6.2 million to go global Read More
Russian search giant Yandex and private equity fund Baring Vostok Capital Partners have invested $5.5 million in DOC+, acquiring a minority stake in the company. The deal was revealed last week by Russian business publication RBC, based on exchanges with the startup’s co-founder Victor Belogub, and confirmed by the investors. The deal was led by Baring Vostok. …
Yandex and Baring Vostok invest $5.5 million in house-call doctor service 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
Last month Yandex announced two enhancements to its in-house browser. The first one is the integration of Zen, a personalized content recommendation technology developed by the Russian search giant, into the browser. This AI-based recommendation technology uses Yandex’s considerable global web index to pick stories, images, videos and other content for each individual user. Presented as a content …
Yandex browser integrates content discovery feed, supports new ad-blocking extensions Read More
Russian Q&A service TheQuestion is opening representative offices in London and Berlin to develop internationally, while keeping its R&D capacities in Moscow, Russian magazine Sekret Firmy reported last week. The move comes just after the company completed a $500,000 round of funding, following an initial round of the same amount. Among the investors are “owners of media …
Q&A service TheQuestion raises $500,000, opens offices in Berlin and London Read More
Illustrating Russia’s and China’s willingness to strengthen their ties in the field of high technologies, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s sovereign fund, has agreed a partnership with several Russian and Chinese industry players to develop and manufacture medical robots. According to the agreement, which was annonced Friday last week at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a …
Russian and Chinese technoparks team up to develop medical robots Read More
Members of the Russian State Duma have approved the third reading of a new bill requiring foreign IT companies to pay value added tax (VAT) on the sale of online content, the Slon.ru news website reported Wednesday. The bill, nicknamed the “Google tax law,” requires companies which distribute or sell online applications, games, music, or …
Facebook has entered into negotiations with Yandex, the Russian search giant, over a potential partnership deal, Russian business daily Vedomosti newspaper reported Monday, citing unnamed sources close to both companies. The companies are discussing exchanging user data and possible joint promotions, Vedomosti reported. One of the newspaper’s sources, allegedly close to Facebook, said that negotiations are still in the …
Yandex and Facebook in talks to share user data and combine advertising inventories Read More
Google now surpasses Yandex in terms of monthly audience in Russia, while the Russian search giant is keeping its leadership in terms of daily audience, according to TNS. During the month of April 2016, according TNS data cited by Russian business daily Vedomosti, 20.5 million people used Google at least once in Russia, whether on computers or …
Google surpasses Yandex in monthly audience in Russia Read More
The billionaire Evgeny Prigozhin is demanding that Yandex delete from its search results an article about the Internet Research Agency, better known as Russia’s “troll factory.” Several news outlets, including the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, have published articles claiming that Prigozhin is the brains and money behind the troll factory. The billionaire has also demanded that Yandex …
