Continuing its expansion into the realm of mobile, Russia’s search giant Yandex officially unveiled its application store for Android-powered devices at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month. Yandex.Store already has more than 50,000 paid and free apps and is available in Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, and Turkish languages.
Seventeen-year-old Kirill Chekanov has created a start-up which he called “Twitter for investors.” The project, which is still beta testing and seeking both new investors and a customer base, is competing in a narrow niche. Chekanov claims Hippflow steps up investor communications, while critics say it allows investors to publically transmit what they prefer to exchange …
Avito.ru, Russia’s leading classifieds site by number of users, is merging with its competitors Slando.ru and OLX.ru, creating the fifth most popular Russian website, with more than 100 million page views a day, The Financial Times reported this morning. As part of the deal, Slando and OLX will be folded into the Avito brand. The …
Avito.ru, Slando.ru and OLX.ru merge to create online classifieds giant Read More
The invest abroad trend among Russian financial institutions was demonstrated again last week by a capital injection of “several million euros” in Wine in Black, a German premium wine online retailer. The round was led by Russia’s Bright Capital Digital with existing investors – e.ventures (Hamburg), Passion Capital (London) and Project A (Berlin) – also participating “significantly.” Wine …
Russia’s Bright Capital leads investment round in German wine online retailer Read More
HUBFORUM – “La Conférence Luxe & Digital,” the first business event dedicated to digital luxury, lifestyle, and fashion, will hold its second Moscow edition on April 2, 2013, on the final day of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia. The conference, which will gather leading fashion, luxury and digital marketing professionals from Europe and the USA, will explore …
The Luxury, Fashion, Lifestyle & Digital Business Conference is coming back to Moscow Read More
Last week the Moscow Seed Fund, Moscow City’s venture investment arm, announced an investment of an undisclosed amount in Alytics, a startup developing contextual ad solutions “to optimize conversion rates and save on advertising budgets.” Igor Ryabenkiy, one of the twelve partnering investors that the municipal fund picked up last year, also took part in the …
Moscow Seed Fund and angel investor Igor Ryabenkiy back contextual ad solution provider Read More
Ru-Net, a Russian tech fund with headquarters in Moscow and New York, has shelled out $6 million to buy a 25% stake in Esky.ru, an online retailer of children’s goods, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported earlier this week, citing two unnamed sources “with knowledge of the deal.” One of the sources told Kommersant that …
E-commerce site Esky.ru secures $6 million from Ru-Net Read More
In an attempt to shed some light on Russia’s Internet industry, the Russian edition of Forbes magazine released last week the 2013 edition of its “Top 30 Internet companies” ranking. The ranking is based on estimates of each company’s annual revenue. From a methodological standpoint, however, it leaves much to be desired. Not only is …
Comparing apples and oranges: Forbes ranks Russia’s “Top 30 Internet companies” Read More
In January 2013, Vkontakte.ru (VK.com), attracted 50.5 million users of 12 to 64 years of age in Russia, or 47.5% of the country’s population of the same age group. The popular social network occupied third place among the Top 10 Russian websites, according to the market research company TNS. In its January report, TNS put Vkontakte right …
Russia’s biggest social network has announced a new ad policy to streamline and centralize sales of advertisements in applications and has launched its own advertising network, a move first announced in November 2012. Starting March 15, app developers will not be allowed to place banners and media advertisements in their apps, as everything will be …
Vkontakte changes ad policy, launches own advertising network Read More
Last month Moscow-based fashion retailer Trends Brands announced it had raised $4 million in a Series B round. The amount includes $3 million from French venture fund Ventech and $1 million from Ru-Net and Kite Ventures, two Russian funds operating internationally, a source close to the deal told East-West Digital News. Ru-Net and Kite Ventures had …
Last year, East-West Digital News reported on a Moscow discount site’s client database that had been leaked to crooks for $6,700. Several new cases were brought to our attention recently, suggesting there is a growing black market of client database information in Russia. Various kinds of websites are concerned, from small ones to some well-established …
Client database trafficking develops in Moscow, established e-commerce sites under threat Read More
