Two funds managed by Da Vinci Capital Management — Da Vinci Private Equity Fund II L.P. and Da Vinci Pre-IPO — have invested in Softline, a Moscow-based international software licensor and IT service provider. The news was reported last week by Russian business daily Kommersant based on exchanges with Softline top executives. The details of the transaction has not been …
At the end of July, during the SIGGRAPH 2016 Forum in California, students from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) presented a new system for human interaction with drones. Light Air is a technology that helps the user direct a drone by just stepping on an image that is projected onto a surface. This new system received the Laval Virtual Award, a prestigious prize …
Artificial neural networks are modelled on the human brain and nervous system. They are used to estimate or approximate functions that can depend on a large number of inputs that are generally unknown. One of the hottest areas of artificial intelligence development, neural networks are used extensively in image recognition, data science, forecasting, and many more. Ed …
Russian neural networks predict Donald Trump will be next US president Read More
When multinational corporations work with small startups, it’s always a two-way process, believes Andrej Bievetski, managing director of SAP Labs in the CIS, the local R&D arm of the German software giant. Bievetski, who has been working for SAP for 17 years, took over the running of SAP Labs in March, and a major part …
QwikCilver, a Bangalore, India-based provider of gifting card solutions, has raised $10 million in a new round of funding led by Russian fund Sistema Asia Fund, reports The Economic Times. Previous investors in QwikCilver — including Amazon Asia-Pacific, Accel India and Helion Venture Partners — also participated in the round, but their respective contributions has not been …
Sistema Asia Fund invests in Indian gifting card startup Read More
Iranian hackers have compromised more than a dozen accounts on the Telegram instant messaging service and identified the phone numbers of 15 million Iranian users, the largest known breach of the encrypted communications system, cyber researchers told Reuters. The attacks, which took place this year and have not been previously reported, jeopardized the communications of …
Hackers break into Telegram, revealing 15 million users’ phone numbers Read More
Ru-Net, the venture fund of Russian billionaire Leonid Boguslavsky, did not spend a single dollar to acquire Groupon Russia in April of this year, Interfax wrote last week, citing Groupon official information. This acquisition took place in April. Ru-Net intends to “stimulate the company’s growth and make it more profitable” with plans to develop across Russian regions …
Groupon Russia sold to Ru-Net for free, renamed ‘Frendi’ Read More
A controversy sparked last week over Google’s decision to change the names of Crimean settlements appearing on Google Maps, in accordance with the Ukrainian authorities’ “decommunization” campaign. In May 2016, the Ukrainian parliament renamed 70 settlements in Crimea, mostly choosing names of Crimean Tatar origin. Thus Krasnogvardeyskoe (‘Red Guard’) became “Yany Kapu” while Sovetskoe switched …
Crimea maps scandals: Google offends Russia, then Ukraine Read More
International startups are invited to take part in GoTech, a major Russian startup contest, to secure investments from such leading funds as Runa Capital and Phystech Ventures. Application should be made no later that September 11 via GoTech’s website. The funds are mostly interested in IT projects from the following areas: Big Data and analytics, machine learning …
Phystech Ventures, a fund with Russian roots, has taken part in a funding round of 1.5 million Singaporean dollars (approximately $1.1 million) for Teamie, a social mobile learning platform operating Asia Pacific. The round was led by ACP, a Singapore-based venture capital firm, with Spring Seeds Capital and an undisclosed individual investor also taking part …
Phystech Ventures backs Singapore-based edtech startup Teamie Read More
Moscow City Hall has announced the launch of its own version of online game “Pokemon Go.” Russians will be asked to find and “catch” historical figures in the streets of the capital via an app called “Know Moscow.Photo.” The game, which is due to be released in August, will use the augmented reality technology of …
Moscow authorities to launch their own version of Pokemon Go Read More
InVenture Partners, a venture firm with Russian roots whose portfolio includes taxi booking app Gett, is launching a second, $150 million fund. The new fund is currently raising money from undisclosed limited partners, with 10% of the capital being contributed by Inventure’s managing partners Sergey Azatyan and Anton Inshutin. Inventure Partners II will support consumer Internet …
InVenture Partners launches second, $150 million international fund Read More
