Russian seach giant Yandex has completed the sell-off of its Facebook shareholding. Commenting on Yandex’s Form 20-F annual report for foreign private issuers, the Russian business daily Vedomosti estimated that a 142,479 share package sold in two chunks over the past 12 months may have brought the Russian Internet company $8.1 million – a fairly healthy return on an investment of some $3 million in 2010.
The Russian player paid that amount four years ago for an 18.4% stake in Face.com (initially known as Vizi Labs), an Israeli startup developing face recognition solutions.
In 2012 Facebook took over Face.com lock, stock, and barrel, giving Yandex the opportunity to swap its holding in the Israeli company for a stake in the world’s largest social network and an additional $5.7 million in compensation.
Both Facebook and Yandex have tapped into the Face.com technology of recognizing faces and tagging pictures with links to a user’s friends.
Yandex later invested in two other Israeli startups: booking solution developer TimeBooker in 2012 and energy-efficient geolocation technology provider KitLocate earlier this year.
The investment in the latter was announced last month with no financials disclosed. In its 20-F annual report, published since then, Yandex specified that the Russian company had completed the 100% acquisition “for a cash consideration of up to $10.2 million.”
