In late March Moscow startup Briskly raised $3 million from Maxim Poletaev and Gauss Ventures alongside two unnamed new investors. Poletaev, a former Sber executive, and Gauss, a Cayman-based fund with Russian connections, backed Briskly from the very beginning, with a $370,000 injection in 2019. The deal came just five months after a previous $2 million round — and is preceding a new …
In late March Sber, the state-controlled financial and digital giant previously known as Sberbank, took control of a Russian video creation startup called Movika. Sber announced its subsidiary Digital Assets acquired a 58% stake in Movika and could increase it to 80% in the future. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. Movika’s technology allows …
A pool of individual investors has put 431 million rubles (around $5.6 million at the current exchange rate) in Beri Zaryad, a Moscow-based smartphone charging service. As reported by Forbes, the investors include Alexander Kabatov, Valery Ivanov, Bogdan Leonov and Alla Merman. The funding has been split as follows: 102 million rubles in capital injection …
Russian investors put millions in smartphone service startups Read More
A new Russian tech billionaire emerged last week on the NASDAQ with the SPAC-enabled listing of Arrival, a company touted as a game-changer in the electric car industry. Born 42 years ago in the Soviet republic of Georgia, Denis Sverlov founded in first company — an ERP integrator called IT Vision — in 2000, immediately after graduating the …
This former Russian deputy minister is now worth $10 billion after NASDAQ IPO Read More
Earlier this month in Germany, a Russian-founded startup launched a “4-in-1 finance platform” for SMBs — a solution that automates admin and accounting processes. The startup, dubbed Monite, also announced the completion of a €1.1 million pre-seed funding round, which involved no less than 10 investors. Among them are Berlin-based signals Venture Capital, Zurich-based Tomahawk VC, Turkish fund InVentures …
Two startup entrepreneurs from Russia aim to “revolutionize SME finance” in Germany Read More
Alfa-Bank is in the process of acquiring Netmonet, a startup that uses QR codes to automate tips in restaurants, cafés and beauty salons. In an agreement signed last month, the Russian lender is committed to acquire the company fully for an undisclosed amount. Forbes Russia has estimated Netmonet’s valuation at approximately $4 million — a sizeable amount …
Russian tip automation startup acquired by major bank 18 months after launch Read More
A bevy of prominent business angels have backed Voices, a Russian-founded micropodcasting startup based in California. Two million US dollars were contributed by Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike, Tinder founder Justin Mateen, Shutterstock founder John Oringer, eBay founder Peter Thiel, MSQRD co-founders Sergey Gonchar, Evgeny Negen and Andrey Yanchurevich, alongside a few others. Voices co-founder Alexey …
Moscow-based IT company Hot-WiFi has announced its entry on the US market. The Russian startup offers businesses a guest WiFi hotspot network with marketing functions and data analytics services. This approach may increase the turnover of a coffee shop, for example, by 10% as shown by a business case in Moscow. Founded in 2012, Hot-WiFi has …
Russian WiFi marketing startup makes first steps in US market Read More
Last week, a sizable deal in the field of neurosciences was announced in Russia. Maxim Basov, an executive from the agro industry, has invested in Wikium, an award-winning startup offering brain productivity exercises for office staff and students. Basov took control of the company, acquiring a 66% stake, Rusbase reported. The amount of the deal was not disclosed, but Rusbase noted …
Earlier this month in the Russian capital, air mobility startup Hoversurf started testing its Hover drone taxi, a flying vehicle that can transport passengers and cargo, ‘Popular Mechanics’ magazine reports. The drone taxi is the size of a standard sedan car (5 m x 1.6 m), says TASS news agency, citing the press service of the Moscow city …
MegaFon, a major Russian mobile operator and retailer, has increased its stake in video service Start to 50%, as reported by business daily Kommersant. The move follows the acquisition of 33.8% of the company, announced in October 2020. The valuation of the startup — which was founded in 2017 — could reach or exceed 4 billion rubles (some …
Russian telecom majors MegaFon and MTS invest in the startup space Read More
TraceAir, a construction software startup with Russian roots, announces the completion of its Series A $3.5 million round. It was led by London-based XTX Ventures with participation from Liquid 2 Ventures, GEM Capital, GPS Ventures, Andrew Filev (CEO Wrike), Metropolis.VC (which invested in a previous round) as well as US construction industry majors Independent Construction and ENGEO. TraceAir has developed a cloud platform to help construction companies …
