While PayPal is starting activities on the Russian market, two domestic e-currencies, Yandex.Money and Money Mail.ru, are introducing their own innovative features. Since late November, Yandex.Money has allowed its users to send money via email. To send a so-called ‘money letter’, a user only needs a Yandex.Mail account and a Yandex.Money e-wallet. The recipient can …
Illustrating the growing traction of Russia’s mobile advertising market, TNS Russia has started publishing data on the popularity of mobile applications, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported last month. This ranking differs in important ways from TNS’ list of the most popular sites via traditional web access in Russia. The application of leading social network VKontakte (VK.com) is …
TNS ranks Russian mobile apps audience for the first time Read More
Last week, the finale of the 5th annual Web Ready contest was held in Skolkovo, based on an initial selection of 715 applications from 100 cities in 21 countries. BUBUKA, a service to control music broadcasting from Tomsk, received the first prize. Second place went to Alytics, a startup from Zelenograd developing contextual ad solutions …
Web Ready 2013 awards music broadcasting, contextual ad and customer service solutions Read More
The famous tech publication Mashable has published its selection of Russia’s 20 “hottest startups.” According to the site, “Russia is gradually becoming a place where its undoubtedly strong education and engineering standards are blending with original entrepreneurship.” In addition to Skolkovo in the Moscow region, Mashable highlights that “in St. Petersburg and the lesser-known cities …
Last week, a team of four Russian programmers won the 2013 international PayPal Battle Hack, reported RIA Novosti. PayPal’s Battle Hack 2013 offered teams from Moscow, Berlin, Washington, London, New York, Tel Aviv, Seattle, Barcelona, Miami and Austin 24 hours to develop a completely new service that would be introduced by PayPal. The competition was held …
Russian team wins PayPal Battle Hack and a $100,000 prize Read More
Last week, Walkbase, a marketing optimization platform for brick & mortar retailers, announced a €3 million Series A round investment led by SBT Venture Capital, the venture arm of the Russian national savings bank Sberbank. Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, former CEO of Nokia, also participated in the round. Walkbase will invest the funds in “strengthening its sales, …
Finnish retail analytics startup raises €3 million from Sberbank’s venture arm Read More
A survey by Superjob.ru published earlier this month found that the word Russians most associated with advertising was “annoying.” The survey was conducted in September 2013, with 1,000 economically active adult respondents from all regions of the country. Eleven percent of respondents found advertising to be negative, while less than 2% evoked positive associations with advertising …
Online advertising judged by Russians less intrusive than traditional ads Read More
Last week, the Russian edition of Forbes released a list of 10 top Russian venture capitalists whom it identified as being “the most successful.” In the last four years, these investors have earned approximately $3.6 billion from mainly Internet-related projects. The ranking uses the same methodology as American Forbes for The Midas List, the global …
Forbes identifies Russia’s top 10 venture capitalists Read More
Travelata.ru, a Russian online travel agency focusing on package tours, has just released an in-depth presentation on the Russian online travel market. Citing a recent report by the global travel market research company PhoCusWright, Travelata reports that the Russian travel market was worth $53 billion in 2012. Only 14% of travel in Russia is currently …
Russia’s online travel market posts 50% yearly growth Read More
Last week ID Quantique (IDQ), a Geneva-based company that develops commercial encryption technologies based on the principles of quantum physics, raised $5.6 million in funding from Quantum Wave Capital (QWave Capital), a Moscow-based venture fund operating internationally. QWave Capital gained a significant but minority stake in IDQ thanks to the funding, $4.5 million of which was …
QWave Capital invests $5.6 million in Switzerland’s ID Quantique Read More
Nginx, an open source web server publisher (pronounced “engine-x”), secured $10 million in a Series B Round of financing from New Enterprise Associates (NEA). The round also included full participation of existing Series A investors, Moscow-based early stage venture fund Runa Capital, US fund MDS Capital and US-German fund e.ventures, as well as participation from Aaron Levie, CEO …
Russian-American web server publisher Nginx raises $10 million from US fund NEA Read More
Open Retail, a subsidiary of marketing communications agency Open Group, has raised about $2 million from Prostor Capital to develop Smart Checkout, a hardware and software system that identifies customer preferences during checkout and produces a targeted advertising message via coupon. The company claims that its technology currently has no direct competitors on the Russian …
Prostor Capital invests $2 million in retail marketing solution Smart Checkout Read More
