US venture capitalists go East: Russia’s startups now more appealing

March 10, 2012

Is Russia becoming a new frontier for US venture capitalists? With local startups and incubators springing up like mushrooms, a number of foreign tech investors have started to operate in the country, which is striving for modernization. Exemplifying the invest in Russia trend is Tiger Global Management, a New York-based international investment management firm. Over …

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US business angel Esther Dyson: “Online services can reduce the costs of being honest”

March 9, 2012

Among US business angels, Esther Dyson is probably the one who has invested the most to date in Russia. Her portfolio includes no fewer than 15 Russian startups as well as Yandex, the search giant which she advises as a member of its board of directors. In this exchange with East-West Digital News, Esther Dyson …

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Made-in-Skolkovo products get first international clients

March 9, 2012

The potential of Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub nearing completion outside of Moscow, as a research and development base for marketable high tech products has been illustrated, for one of the first times, by the first international sales of a cloud computing solution developed with the support of Skolkovo’s IT cluster.

Russia’s government innovators and stock exchange consider open playground for start-up stocks

March 8, 2012

Two deep-pocket, state-owned innovation flagships, the Russian Venture Company (RVC) and Rusnano, and the MICEX-RTS stock exchange have shaken hands on an uncommonly broad-based, private/public partnership designed to aid Russia’s fledgling technology innovators. In a concerted not-for-profit effort called Innovation and Investment Market (IIM), also known as IPO Board, the players are stepping forward to …

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Rostelecom consolidates ownership of cable operator NTK

March 7, 2012

Last week, Rostelecom, the Russian national telecom operator, announced two acquisitions almost simultaneously, reflecting its ambitions to integrate a variety of networks and services across Russia and assert itself as a universal operator. The company announced it consolidated its ownership of NTK, a leading cable operator, of which it had already bought a 71.8% stake …

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SMS spammers could face five years in prison

March 6, 2012

SMS spam should be considered a medium-gravity crime, which implies punishment of up to five years in prison, suggested participants at a meeting last week which brought together Russian regulation and surveillance agencies as well as leading mobile operators. Telecom regulator Roskomnadzor also suggested changing the rules for providing telecommunication services and content.

Israeli startup TimeBooker receives funding from Yandex

March 6, 2012

Last week, Yandex announced it will provide seed funding to TimeBooker, an Israeli startup which intends to serve small and mid-sized service companies with an innovative booking solution. The seed funding, which industry blogger Yakov Sadchikov thinks is “in the range between $50,000 and $100,000,” will be brought under the Yandex.Factory program.

The Russian smartphone market in 2011

March 6, 2012

Russia saw an impressive growth of the smartphone market in 2011, reveals an IDC report presented in late February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The unit share of smartphones reached 19% of the total market, up from 5% in 2010. While Nokia remained the market leader, its share its share fell from 58% to just 48% …

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From St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, 180,000 webcams monitored Russia’s presidential election

March 5, 2012

In an unprecedented experiment to ensure voting transparency, most of Russia’s 94,300 polling stations were equipped with webcams offering a live broadcast of yesterday’s voting. The broadcast, which started at midnight, Moscow time, on election day, ended after all vote counting operations were completed. It was followed by up to 400,000 simultaneous Internet users on a …

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