The majority of Russian venture funds are less than five years old, so there are no investment campaign user manuals like those found in the US or Europe yet. As a result, investors that try to apply American or European concepts in Russia make the same kind of typical mistakes. On the basis of our …
The Russian venture fund Life.SREDA revealed last week a $2 million investment in Moven, a three-year-old New York-based banking startup. Moven’s CEO and founder Brett King hopes that the deal, which took place in July, will help his company further upgrade what he calls a “world-class mobile solution to the problem of the next-generation bank account.” In an …
Russia’s Life.SREDA invests in US startup to build “world’s first cardless bank” Read More
Eruditor, a startup that helps users find hairdressers, fitness instructors, plumbers, or doctors via specialized service marketplaces, has just raised $12 million at an undisclosed valuation from Intel Capital, Frontier Ventures, and Runa Capital. The Moscow-based startup claims to have served 400,000 users since its launch in 2007 and provided more than 100,000 professionals with …
Leading Russian payment company Qiwi, which launched an in-house venture activity in early 2013, announced earlier this month its first investment. The group invested in Carbay.ru, a web and mobile service created in May of this year to help professional car dealerships place classifieds on a variety of third-party online resources, including social networks. “Not only …
Qiwi announces first venture investment deals and an enlarged investment focus Read More
Agelon, an online Russian research service for high-precision marketing surveys, announced last month that it has raised 11 million rubles (about $330,000) in its most recent round of funding led by the Moscow Seed Fund, the City of Moscow’s venture investment arm. The other member of the investor consortium is the Innovation Laboratory, a Moscow-based …
Moscow investors pump $330,000 into Agelon’s high-tech marketing tool Read More
Almaz Capital Partners, one of the most established Russian venture funds, has discretely launched a second fund with $102 million under management. No noisy announcement was made, but the news was reported in late July by the financial press and the fund’s Crunchbase page has been updated correspondingly. “Our first fund has exhausted its capital. …
Almaz Capital invests in US big data solution provider and launches new $102 million fund Read More
Moscow-based online flight ticket retailer Onetwotrip.com, one of the fastest growing startups on the Russian scene, has fully acquired DealAngel, a startup that has developed an advanced hotel booking technology. The news, revealed earlier this week by the Russian business daily Vedmosti, was confirmed to East-West Digital News by Onetwotrip’s founder and CEO Peter Kutis.
A minority stake in Banki.ru, one of the largest B2C banking portals on the Russian-language Internet, has changed hands. Finam Global, a Moscow-based investment fund, sold it earlier this month to Russia Partners Technologies, a high tech focused fund run by Russia Partners. Philipp Ilyin-Adaev, the founder and CEO of Banki.ru, hopes that the involvement …
Russian-US PE fund Russia Partners acquires minority stake in Banki.ru Read More
The BIT Contest, Russia’s largest tech competition for innovation startup projects, announced the winners of its Global Track program on Monday. This year marks the 10th edition of this competition, which originally drew inspiration from the U.S.’ MIT $100K and Mass Challenge. The Global Track, co-sponsored by Intel and RVC, the state-owned fund of funds dedicated …
BIT Contest announces Global Track nomination winners Read More
Every day, 300 million new photos are loaded onto Facebook; Instagram users publish 58 pictures each second. Not uploading what you had for lunch or the thousandth image of your favorite cat in the social network has become almost indecent. However, most users do not really care about what, and with what kind of optical …
Russian startup Photozeen uses games to teach photography Read More
Investing in US startups has become a habit for certain Russian venture funds, as shown by a recent $700,000 capital injection into California-based Venturocket.com, an innovative online “talent discovery platform.” The round was led by Runa Capital, a venture fund with offices in Moscow and California, with the participation of Talent Equity Ventures, the venture arm of a Russian …
Californian startup raises $700,000 to put an end to “résumé spam” Read More
This Saturday, the “Startup Picnic” entrepreneurial festival will bring together investors, business angels, representatives of development institutions, and leading business coaches, as well as existing entrepreneurs, in partnership with East-West Digital News. The program will include a variety of educational seminars and master classes on topics such as project presentation, business modeling, business process optimization, …
Startup Picnic: The must-attend summer event for Moscow’s startup community Read More
