Over the last years, X5 Retail Group, a leading Russian food retailer listed on the London and Moscow stock exchanges, has undertaken a process of deep digital transformation from procurement automation, to facial recognition, to video analytics. As Head of X5 Technologies, Anton Mironenkov, leads a team of some 2,500 professionals. In this interview with …
Yandex.Checkout, a leading Russian payment service provider, is going to run its international operations – essentially in cross-border B2C payment operations – under a new brand, ‘YooMoney.’ The company says the transition will be completed by mid-December, 2020. As for domestic operations, they are now run under brand of ‘YooKassa.’ These changes are coming as …
Now fully owned by Sber, Yandex.Checkout rebrands to ‘YooMoney’ Read More
Rostelecom, Russia’s national telecom operator, is in the process of acquiring a 51% stake in Bolshaya Troika (Big 3), a provider of waste processing automation solutions. The transaction, which amounts to 1.275 billion rubles ($16.7 billion at the current exchange rate), will be completed in the first half of 2021 “after successful launch of a …
Rostelecom to take control of waste management solution provider for $16.7 million Read More
Russian 3D rendering company Megarender has secured $3 million from Scalo Technologies, a firm launched earlier this year to invest in artificial intelligence and B2B cloud services. Megarender facilitates access to powerful servers to increase considerably the speed of 3D rendering. Customers may thus use such software as 3ds MAX, Arnold, Blender, Cinema 4D, Corona Renderer, …
New Russian AI and cloud investment firm backs 3D rendering company Megarender Read More
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the digital landscape in the Russia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), says the latest GSMA report about this region. Mobile operators in the region have engaged with the public and private sectors on initiatives to alleviate the impact of the pandemic …
The Russian government has plans to use of artificial intelligence increasingly in the framework of its digital transformation. On November 12, the heads of digital transformation of seven federal ministries and agencies — covering energy, industry and trade, culture, education and science, cadastre, agriculture, and taxes — gathered in a “strategic session on artificial …
Ozon, the leading multi-category e-commerce platform in Russia, filed today an amended version of the SEC registration statement for its NASDAQ IPO. The company will go public at a valuation of $4.6 billion to $5.6 billion, Financial Times reports from unnamed sources “familiar with the plans.” This is is more twice as high as the underwriters’ initial highest estimates, …
Amid strong investor demand, Ozon hopes to raise up to $1 billion in US IPO Read More
Cognitive Technologies, an established Russian software corporation, is developing one of the world’s most advanced autonomous AI-based driving systems for farming equipment. Under the brand ‘Cognitive Agro Pilot,’ this system was used across 35 regions of Russia when reaping the 2020 harvest. “Between June and October 2020, over 350 autonomous harvesters fitted with [our] solutions …
Russia has plans to develop its own cluster of at least 500 “next-generation, multi-spectrum satellites,” starting from next year. Dubbed ’Sfera,’ the program aims to provide high-speed Internet access and communications — particularly, along the Northern Sea Route — similarly to Starlink, a project developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Under plans, the first satellites could be …
American investor Michael Calvey and six other defendants in the Baring Vostok case have been released from house arrest, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday. This is the latest breakthrough in one of the most high-profile cases in the Putin era involving foreign businessmen. Their private equity fund, Baring Vostok, has been an investor in some of Russia’s …
Michael Calvey freed from house arrest weeks after settlement of civil claims Read More
Fura, a Moscow-based startup offering high-tech services to truck drivers, has raised 160 million rubles ($2.1 million at the current exchange rate) in a Series A round led by an unnamed Swiss-Russian fund. Alexander Popov, Svyatoslav Vilde and other individual investors also took part in the round. The fresh funding will be used to strengthen the …
After raising $2.1 million, this Russian truck driving startup wants to become a unicorn Read More
Upmarket, a service that helps e-merchants trade on marketplace, has agreed a 170 million ruble ($2.2 million) investment plan with OKS Group. The investor may get a 31% stake in the company by mid-2021, reports business daily Kommersant. From content creation, to marketing strategy, to logistic support, Upmarket helps merchants place goods on three of Russia’s …
OKS Group to invest $2.2 million in marketplace support service Upmarket Read More
