Runa Capital, a venture investment firm operating globally from its offices in Moscow, London and Palo Alto, considers launching a third fund, potentially raising some $135 million. The new fund would operate during four years, Runa Capital Managing Partner Dmitry Chikhachev told us. Launched in 2011, Runa Capital’s first fund targeted essentially Russian startups; but …
Runa Capital considers launching new $135 million fund 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
VEB Innovations, the venture arm of Vnesheconombank supporting innovative projects, is planning to invest up to 200 million rubles ($3.5 million at the current exchange rate) in Compo, a Russian developer and manufacturer of automated retail solutions. Compo is planning to use the financing to develop sales on the global market. Currently, the company is …
VEB Innovations to invest $3.5 million in Russian retail systems developer 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 …
In late December Waves, a global public blockchain platform with Russian roots, announced the creation of Basics, a fund which aims to invest essentially in blockchain infrastructure. Defining itself as “a new blockchain venture product,” Basics aims to “combine the best of venture funds and hedge funds.” With an initial portfolio of existing traded crypto …
Russian money and expertise for new blockchain funds Read More
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 …
AddVenture, a major Russian venture fund, has invested $500,000 into the Spanish same-day laundry and dry-cleaning online service MrJeff in exchange for a 10% stake in the company. The news was reported by the Russian online publication Firrma.ru earlier this week. Touted as “the laundry revolution,” this subscription-based service claims to have over 15,000 clients in …
AddVenture invests in Greek and Spanish online services Read More
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has established a new vehicle to invest in technology, ‘RDIF Technologies,’ the sovereign fund’s CEO Kirill Dmitriev told President Putin on Tuesday. “We have chosen leading partners from China, Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They will invest together with us in technology projects based on [the presidential] digital …
Noting venture investors’ rising interest in ICOs, Pavel Korolev, the founder and CEO of Pulsar Venture Capital, analyzes the opportunities and challenges of this new method of financing. While some say that ICOs will break venture funds’ monopoly on startup funding, a growing number of these funds are experimenting with token sale. Since fundraising through …
Pavel Korolev of Pulsar Venture Capital: “VCs also want ICOs” Read More
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
Last week Sberbank, Russia’s national savings bank, announced an investment in VisionLabs, a Russian startup specializing in facial recognition, data analysis and robotics. The deal, the terms of which remain undisclosed, aims to support VisionLabs’ expansion on the international markets, including Europe, the USA and Asia. Sberbank has acquired a 25.07% stake, the remaining shares belonging to …
Sberbank invests in VisionLabs to build “unique biometric identifier” Read More
AddVenture, a major Russian venture fund, has invested $4.5 million in the Russian home-cleaning service Qlean in a deal valuing the startup at $80 million. AddVenture had previously invested $1.2 million and $3.5 million back in 2015 and 2016. Qlean’s founders still retain a majority stake in the company. The news was reported earlier this week by Russian …
AddVenture invests $4.5 million in Russian home-cleaning service Read More
