Yandex.Taxi, the taxi-hailing company which merged activities in Russia and some neighboring countries with Uber last year, is planning a new acquisition to expand across Russian regions. The company (formally called MLU) announced today an agreement to acquire the IP and call-centers of Vezet, a taxi-hailing service which is available in 123 Russian cities under …
Earlier this month Emerging Travel Group, an international online travel group with Russian connections, announced it raised $10 million in a Series E funding round. The investors are Russian-Israeli tech investor Lev Leviev – through his investment company LVL1 Group – and Igor and Dmitri Bukhman. The company hopes the investment will help it accelerate the …
Emerging Travel Group secures $10 million from Lev Leviev, Igor and Dmitri Bukhman Read More
Yesterday Alibaba, Mail.Ru Group, Russian telco MegaFon and sovereign fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) announced they received approval from Russia’s antimonopoly authorities for their “social commerce joint venture.” The JV will leverage on the existing businesses of AliExpress Russia, the B2C marketplace owned by Alibaba which controls a large part of the e-commerce flows between China and Russia. The partners …
Tinkoff Bank, a tech-friendly Russian bank, has launched an own-branded online travel agency. The offer includes air and railway tickets, packaged tours, hotels and car rentals. Since April 2018, the bank has put around $2 million to develop this travel service platform, the press service told us. However, the platform worked so far “as a …
Tinkoff Bank positions itself on Russia’s $15 billion online travel market Read More
The sales revenues (GMV) of Ozon, Russia’s leading multi-category e-commerce platform, increased by 73% last year, reaching 42.5 billion rubles (nearly $680 million) incl. VAT. More than 15 million orders (74 million items in total) were processed, the company announced last month. Much of the activity increase was driven by a larger assortment (now 1.6 …
Russian online retailer Ozon plans tenfold logistic expansion after record growth Read More
DSight, a database of deals dedicated to the Russian venture market, has just released the English version of its latest yearly report. This research includes contributions from EY, investor association NAIMA, CrunchBase and East-West Digital News. The market grew significantly last year, reaching $714.4 million, up 51.6% from 2017. If including Sberbank’s $500 million investment in …
Tiny, but growing: Russian VC market exceeded $1.2 billion in 2018 Read More
Each year specialized research agency Data Insight releases its ranking of Russian e-commerce sites. Sites are ranked by sales volume (incl. VAT), number of orders and average order value as estimated by the research agency and, in certain cases, confirmed by the companies. (The ranking excludes foreign players, which explains why AliExpress is not mentioned.) …
Facebook and Twitter have been given nine months by Roskomnadzor, the Russian telecom and Internet regulator, to move Russian users’ data onto servers located physically on Russia soil. As reported yesterday by the Interfax news agency, Roskomnadzor’s head Alexander Zharov expressed “hope” that the two companies will comply with Russian legislation on personal data storage, and …
Facebook and Twitter given nine more months to comply with Russian data-localization law Read More
“Sources close to the Kremlin” told independent TV station Dozhd that the arrest of Baring Vostok founder Michael Calvey on Feb. 15 – which President Putin at least knew about and perhaps endorsed – were caused by suspicions that the private equity firm funded Russian opposition groups. “They tried to shake things up before the …
Baring Vostok case not about politics, but perhaps about geopolitics Read More
One of the rare international acceleration programs locally available to Russian startups, Winno Moscow is preparing its fourth season this year, selecting some 10 projects among 200 applicants. After a four-month acceleration process, the selected startups will benefit from a one-week business trip in Paris, including a visit to Vivatech, France’s largest tech event, in May …
This accelerator aims to introduce Russian tech startups to French and global markets Read More
US citizen Michael Calvey, a figure of the Russian private equity scene, was detained Friday in Moscow as part of a large-scale fraud investigation (read more about the charges). The news has put the Russian investor and tech community under shock. Calvey is the founder of Baring Vostok Capital Partners, one of the most established …
Baring Vostok founder under arrest: The Russian tech investment community under shock Read More
Naspers’s classifieds business, OLX Group, announced Friday that it took full control of Avito.ru, Russia’s number one classifieds site, boosting its stake from 70.4% to 99.6%. Among the minority shareholders exiting the company is Swedish investment firm Vostok New Ventures (VNV, previously known as Vostok Nafta Investment), which will get gross proceeds of $540 million from …
Naspers takes full control of Avito, Russia’s leading classifieds site Read More
