East-West Digital News

Russian e-commerce leader Wildberries launches in Germany

January 15, 2021 December 7, 2024

Wildberries, the number one Russian e-commerce company, announced yesterday its launch in Germany in the latest stage of its international expansion. Through a localized interface, German online shoppers can access more than four million products — from fashion items, to electronic and household appliances, to books, to sports items, to cosmetics and more. The Russian company …

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Amid explosive user growth, Telegram considers raising more than $1 billion in debt

January 14, 2021 January 18, 2021

Telegram now serves more than 500 million active users, its Russian co-founder Pavel Durov announced Tuesday. Twenty-five million new users joined the platform in the previous 72 hours alone. “We’ve had surges of downloads before, throughout our seven-year history of protecting user privacy, but this time is different,” Durov emphasized. The surge comes as rival platform WhatsApp changed its …

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Russian researchers combine ‘e-nose’ with computer vision to cook “the perfect chicken”

January 13, 2021 January 14, 2021

How do you tell that chicken breast on your grill is ready for your plate? Well, you probably look at it closely and smell it to make sure it is done the way you like it. However, if you are a restaurant chef or head cook at a huge industrial kitchen, you cannot really rely …

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Open banking startup secures $1.6 million from Russian-Belarusian state-backed fund

January 12, 2021 January 12, 2021

An award-winning fintech startup from Moscow, APIBank, has attracted 120 million rubles in Russia (some $1.6 million at the current exchange rate) from the Russian-Belarusian Investment Fund (RBF Ventures). As reported by CNews.ru, this is the first external capital infusion — in the form of a convertible loan — in this startup launched in 2018. The money will be used “to develop products for payment aggregators and marketplaces, and …

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“Better than India and Ireland:” Tax relief for Russia’s software developers comes to force

January 7, 2021 January 13, 2021

Following amendments to the Russian tax code which were adopted in July 2020, Russian software developers may, starting from Jan. 1, benefit from significant tax cuts. The new tax regime provides: Reduced rates on the taxes on profit: from 20% to 3% for federal taxes and to 0% for regional taxes; A reduced rate on social security …

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VEB Ventures invests 1 billion rubles in Zyfra to accelerate Russia’s industrial digitization

January 6, 2021 January 6, 2021

In late December VEB Ventures (formerly VEB Innovations), a venture fund backed by state development agency VEB.RF (Vnesheconombank), announced an investment of 990 million rubles ($13.4 million at the current exchange rate) in Zyfra. This Russian company develops AI, IIoT-based solutions and robotic mining equipment to digitize the heavy industry. These solutions are intended to provide “objective data analysis” for industrial companies …

VEB Ventures invests 1 billion rubles in Zyfra to accelerate Russia’s industrial digitization Read More

Russian online freight service Deliver secures $7 million to pursue international expansion

January 5, 2021 January 6, 2021

In the last days of December Deliver announced it secured 500 million rubles (nearly $7 million at the current exchange rate) from VEB Ventures (formerly VEB Innovations), a venture fund backed by state development agency VEB.RF (Vnesheconombank). An internationally successful Russian online freight service, Deliver has set for itself the mission of “solving the inefficiencies of the logistics market by applying modern …

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Sber agrees e-commerce alliance with Merlion

January 5, 2021 January 28, 2021

In late December Sber, Russia’s state-controlled financial and tech giant (previously known as Sberbank), and Merlion, one of the largest Russian IT distributors, agreed to partner in the field of e-commerce. “The new partnership will strengthen Sber’s position in the e-commerce industry and realize a range of new opportunities for B2B and B2C customers, while offering …

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Sber and Skoltech aim to “set the standards for using AI in public healthcare”

December 30, 2020 January 8, 2021

Sber Group, the state-controlled financial and digital giant, and the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) are teaming up to create “an ecosystem for the development of artificial intelligence in Russian healthcare.” Operated by SberMed.AI, a company established this past summer, this ecosystem will “combine the solutions designed by Skoltech research teams with Sber’s cloud-based engineering infrastructure.” Aiming to “set the standards …

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Russia threatens to block YouTube and Facebook for “discriminating content” of official media

December 30, 2020 December 30, 2020

On December 25, the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, approved a bill against “censorship” of Russian media and other illegitimate restrictions to content distribution on the Internet. The new law targets Internet resources, including foreign ones, that restrict “distribution of socially significant information in the territory of the Russian Federation on the grounds of nationality, language, origin, property and …

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Russian edtech on the rise: Kodland raises $1.5 million to expand internationally

December 28, 2020 January 11, 2022

Illustrating the current traction of Russian edtech startups, online programming school Kodland has raised $1.5 million in its first round of financing. The money was brought in by Russian venture capitalist Alexander Nevinsky (a partner at I2BF) and an unnamed “European fund,” as reported by VC.RU. The startup will use the fresh funding to test product …

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Russian startup attracts $1.2 million to develop AI-powered diagnostics and disease risk assessment tools

December 25, 2020 December 25, 2020

Botkin.AI (Intellogic), a Russian startup that has developed an AI-powered radiology platform, has completed a 160 million rubles Series B round ($1.2 million at the current exchange rate). The money was injected by two medtech investors: investment holding Tashir Medica and RVC-backed Unicorn Capital Partners. The funds which took part in the previous round (100 million rubles in June 2019) backed again the …

Russian startup attracts $1.2 million to develop AI-powered diagnostics and disease risk assessment tools Read More

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