Gov2People was launched in February 2011 as the brainchild of Alyona Popova, a Russian public activist and expert on e-government and startup businesses. A wave of protests in the winter of 2011 and the spring of 2012 has pushed many people (not all of which are necessarily opposition-minded) to take action. Citizens have realized that …
Russian startup provides springboard for civic activism Read More
Onetwotrip.com, the rising star of the Russian online travel industry, intends to go public “as early as next year, once sales approach $1 billion a year,” CEO Petr Kutis told Bloomberg last week. The startup claims to have generated $306 million in gross sales last year, including $112 million in the last quarter alone. In …
Onetwotrip prepares for international expansion, plans Western IPO in 2014 Read More
Since the beginning of 2013, the Microsoft Seed Fund has provided a total of $110,000 in grants to two startups from Russia’s regions. A $50,000 grant went to RealSpeaker, a startup from Kazan, Tatarstan, which offers a new approach to speech recognition. The company also recently received financing from Startobaza, a local seed-stage investment company, along with …
Microsoft Seed Fund supports regional startup scene Read More
Ecwid, a leading provider of social commerce solutions based in Ulyanovsk, Russia, and US social commerce pioneer Payvment, have announced that Payvment will refer its 200,000 Facebook merchants to the Ecwid platform. The move comes as a consequence of the acquisition of Payvment by Intuit, a Silicon Valley software publisher. Intuit was essentially interested in …
Russian social commerce solution provider Ecwid asserts leadership on Facebook Read More
Russia’s Zeptolab and AlterGeo were honored last week in Berlin at the finale of The Europas, a contest for technology startups that attracted over 1,000 companies this year from all over the world. The two companies have been judged as the “Best Russian Startups,” with Zeptolab getting two additional awards – the Best Gaming or Social …
ZeptoLab and AlterGeo walk away with top awards at The Europas Read More
For a long time, the Russian IT business had been most prominent in the country’s two capitals – Moscow and St. Petersburg. Lately, though, a surge of startup companies has been observed in a number of smaller cities, as well. One example is Yekaterinburg. The city is home to such projects as online accounting platform …
Startup from the Urals reinvents neighborhood communities Read More
Qiwi, a leading operator of cash payment terminals and electronic wallets operating in Russia and internationally, intends to invest in startups whose solutions could help the group develop its own offers. ‘Qiwi Venture’ will stand as a branch of the company, not a separate investment vehicle, Qiwi’s PR Director Alexandra Vysochkina said in an exchange …
Payment operator Qiwi to invest up to $1 million in Russian and foreign startups Read More
Cellrox, a leader in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Multi-Persona solutions for mobile devices, has secured $4.7 million in a Series A round led by Runa Capital, a Moscow-based international venture fund. The Israeli company’s existing investors, Previz Venture Partners, Columbia Technology Ventures, and others, have also participated in the round. The terms of the …
The EURECA US-Russia Innovation Corridor is a project of the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) and University of Nizhny Novgorod to increase collaboration in innovation and commercialization between the US and Russia. The Corridor will incubate collaborations in innovation between the US and Russia, starting with Maryland and Nizhegorodskaya entities, and drawing upon the …
Smartfin, a provider of mobile payment solutions in Russia, completed its $2 million Series A round of financing in mid-December. The startup, which operates under the brand ‘2can,’ has enjoyed the participation of Almaz Capital and InVenture, two major Russian venture funds, as well as of Cisco VP Bob Agee and other unnamed business angels. …
InVenture and Almaz inject $2 million into Square clone 2can Read More
WebGames, a former game publisher now turned investor in game studios, has taken over Drimmi, a three-year-old Russian developer of games for social networks. The parties have not disclosed the deal’s value, but an anonymous source with knowledge of the transaction leaked to the Russian business daily Vedomosti that it could be in the millions …
WebGames continues buying spree, takes over game developer Drimmi Read More
Among the growing number of players competing on the Russian furniture and home decor online landscape, The Furnish, a site launched last week, demonstrates some originality. It focuses on the premium segment, claiming to be the first online furniture retailer with this specific positioning, and offering items in various styles, from ‘Country’ to ‘Eco-Style’ and …
New online furniture retailer serves ‘American bourgeois-style’ Russian shoppers Read More
