Dutch online marketing expert Bas Godska came to Russia in 2008, when the Russian e-marketing and e-commerce markets were still embryonic. He helped a range of international and Russian players – from Ozon, to Lamoda, to KupiVIP, to Enter.ru – reach major positions on the market and optimize their budget. Lesser known, but prolific, has …
Last week Yandex, the Russian search giant, announced the acquisition of ADFOX, a Russian technological platform for ad serving, independent statistics and advertising campaign analysis. The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. Founded in 2005, the platform enables advertisers to place banners, mobile ads, videos and other popular formats. ADFOX claims to serve more than …
Dmitry Filatov, co-founder of dating service Topface, has launched a new venture fund targeting “Internet companies with problems”. The fund, named Restart Capital, aims to buy into companies facing financial difficulties and turn them around through restructuring and an effective marketing strategy. Restart Capital will principally target social networks, mobile services (but not those that rely …
New Russian fund aims to restart struggling startups Read More
Earlier this month Babadu.ru, a children’s goods online retailer, secured a $2.9 million investment from the Internet Initiatives Development Fund (FRII in Russian). A $200 million seed stage investment fund launched last year, FRII usually invests smaller amounts at earlier stages. However, the fund has been eyeing the online children’s goods market for a long time – one …
Children’s goods online retailer Babadu.ru raises $2.9 million from IIDF Read More
Ingate, a major digital marketing agency with offices in Moscow and Tula, has launched a new venture fund with $15 million to put into new projects. Ingate Venture will invest in projects at the startup phase, with turnover of at least one million rubles (approximately $27,000) per month. It will focus on Internet marketing, social media and web …
Digital marketing agency Ingate launches venture fund Read More
Wikimart, a major Russian B2C marketplace, has agreed a capital increase with a group of Russian investors, including Finprombank chairman Anatoly Goncharov. The news was revealed last week by business daily Kommersant and confirmed to East-West Digital News by Wikimart’s press service. The $40 million capital injection will be used in part to acquire Terminal.ru, a …
Twitter is holding negotiations to sell advertisements in Russia, three sources familiar with the talks told ITAR-TASS last week. “Twitter is in talks to implement their ads possibilities in Russia. The discussion has not evolved into precise parameters yet,” the Russian news agency quoted one of the sources as saying.
As Chinese players are making their move into Russia’s booming cross-border e-commerce scene, AliExpress, the B2C platform of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has become Russia’s most visited e-commerce platform and one of the country’s top 10 most visited websites. This past July, according to TNS, the site attracted no fewer than 15.9 million users of …
Just five years ago, a movie goer may arrive at a Russian movie theatre to watch whatever movie was playing at the time. While anything playing in theaters was advertised in advance, the movie playing at a given time was subject to change. Since then, movie showtimes acquired a much stricter and more consistent schedule. Moreover, Internet …
Yandex.Afisha transforms Russians’ movie theater experience Read More
Last week, Russian web- and video-conferencing software company Webinar.ru announced the completion of a $7.3 million Series A round of funding led by Intel Capital and the EBRD. The deal also involved Flint Capital, a Moscow-based venture fund operating internationally, and VTB Capital, the venture arm of state-owned bank VTB, which invested in the startup …
Russia’s largest social network, Vkontakte, may soon go under the full control of the Mail.ru Group, which is controlled by Kremlin-friendly oligarch Alisher Usmanov via his holding USM Holdings. Negotiations regarding the acquisition of the remaining 48% ownership from investment fund UCP, headed by Ilya Sherbovich, are in the final stages, according to people close …
Mail.ru Group in talks with UCP to fully acquire Vkontakte Read More
Swedish investment fund Kinnevik, German incubator Rocket Internet and other co-investors announced yesterday an agreement to form a new global fashion e-commerce group by combining five leading businesses across the world. These include Dafiti (Latin America), Jabong (India), Lamoda (Russia & CIS), Namshi (Middle East) and Zalora (South East Asia & Australia). Christened Global Fashion …
Lamoda.ru merged into multibillion dollar global fashion e-commerce group Read More
