Last week, as reported by Reuters, TCS Group — the owner of Russian digital banking giant Tinkoff — took control of Swiss crypto service company Aximetria as part of its international expansion strategy. Founded by Russian serial entrepreneur Alex Axelrod in 2018, this startup has developed a SaaS platform to provide “seamless interconnection for any form of money: fiat, crypto and …
Yandex announced almost simultaneously — yesterday and today — two acquisitions. The NASDAQ-listed Russian digital giant is absorbing BandLink, a service for musicians, podcasters and labels to create micro sites, the news agency TASS reports. BandLink helps them promote their releases and concerts (including with personalised links for social media), analyze audiences and identify their …
Russia has dismantled ransomware crime group REvil at the request of the United States in an operation in which it detained and charged the group’s members, the FSB domestic intelligence service said on Friday. The United States welcomed the arrests, according to a senior admininstration official, adding “we understand that one of the individuals who was arrested today was …
Russia takes down REvil hacking group at US request — FSB Read More
Far from their native countries, Russian-speaking entrepreneurs are thriving in the world’s major tech hotspots — from Silicon Valley, to Western Europe, to South-East Asia. These entrepreneurs have colonized the world’s best accelerators, including such ones as Y Combinator, 500 Startups and Techstars. Russian-speaking entrepreneurs reportedly accounted for 40% of a recent Alchemist batch. The …
Russian tech entrepreneurship on the rise: Forbes identifies 10 “future unicorns” Read More
Just a year after its previous round, Russian edtech startup Kodland secured $9 million in a Series A funding round. As reported by TechCrunch, the round was led by Redseed, with participation from Baring Vostok, Kismet, Flyer One Ventures and Alexander Nevinsky, a partner at I2BF who took part in the December 2020 round. All these investors have roots in Russia, excepted Flyer One whose team …
Miro, a US enterprise software publisher with Russian roots, announced yesterday a $400 million Series C round. The deal brought the company — known as RealtimeBoard when it was founded in Russia back in 2011 — to an astounding $17.5 billion post-money valuation. Several other unicorns founded or co-founded by Russian entrepreneurs emerged on the global tech scene over the past years — from Badoo, to Personio, to Veeam Software, …
In mid-December VK Company, a leading Russian Internet group previously known as Mail.ru Group, appointed Vladimir Kiriyenko, the son of a top Kremlin official, as its new chief executive. The LSE-listed group controls Russia’s top social networks (VKontakte and OK) and a variety of other internet businesses. The move followed the takeover of VK by companies affiliated …
Meet Vladimir Kiriyenko, the new CEO of Russia’s top Internet group VK Read More
At a recent roundtable event “Digital Toolkits for Medical Projects”, the Russian Ministry for Economic Development announced that it was considering legislative measures to facilitate the testing of new technologies in healthcare. “This experimental regime for telemedicine and prescriptions will increase the availability of consultations for patients and increase the speed of medical care without the need …
The Untitled, one of the most established VC firms investing across Russia and Eastern Europe, has analyzed investment deals involving startups founded over the past 10 years in Russia or by Russian entrepreneurs. The research covered the deals completed from December 2020 to November 202. It was conducted jointly by The Untitled and Rusven, an influential Telegram …
Mircod, a Russian “IoT-as-a-service” company, has just received 400 million rubles ($5.4 million) from state-owned development corporation VEB.RF via its affiliate fund VEB Ventures, reports business daily Kommersant. Established in 2016 in Tatarstan, a tech friendly region of Russia, Mircod enables rapid prototyping of IoT products and solutions. It has developed a “centralized platform to automate the development of IoT …
Russian IoT startup receives $5.4 million in state money to develop in Western markets Read More
Roskomnadzor, the Russian Internet and telecom regulator, will require Netflix to offer state television channels to its Russian customers after it added the U.S.-based streaming service to its register of “audio-visual services” Tuesday. Roskomnadzor’s register, which was created in late 2020, applies to online streaming services with over 100,000 daily users and requires them to comply …
Russia to require Netflix to stream state television broadcasts Read More
On Friday last week, Russia slapped tech giants Google and Meta with penalties totaling over $125 million for repeated failure to remove banned content, the media reported. A Moscow magistrate’s court fined Google 7.2 billion rubles (around $98 million at the current exchange rate) under a legal clause that allows courts to impose between 5% and …
Russia imposes record fines to Google, Meta for failing to remove banned content Read More
