Earlier this week, the Skolkovo Foundation and the French global energy engineering company Schneider Electric inked an agreement that gives Schneider Electric residency status in Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub under construction outside Moscow, and paves the way for opening its own R&D center there, Schneider Electric reports. The innovation center, which is expected to …
MTS, a major Russian mobile operator, has made digital TV available in 150 cities across Russia. It is expected that, due to the new digital platforms, the number of TV channels including HD will grow by more than 60%, and diverse interactive services will be launched. At the moment, MTS Digital TV platform provides 118 …
The Russian research and production company General Satellite Corporation is expanding its pay-TV activities outside the country. According to Kommersant, the company, which is believed to have ownership links with the leading Russian DTH platform Tricolor TV, has entered into a 51/49 joint venture with the Royal Group of Companies (RGC) to launch what will be …
Russia’s General Satellite expands pay-TV activities in Asia and Africa Read More
Today, East-West Digital News is releasing a 316-page research study on the Russian online retail market – one of the fastest growing but least known (and most misunderstood) on the planet. The research – in which PwC in Russia and the Moscow Higher School of Economics, among others, took part – is based on interviews …
International research study sheds full light on Russian e-commerce Read More
Gfranq, a photo editing site launched just four months ago, is getting strong traction among amateur photographers, with more than 100,000 users in its first three months. Gfranq’s idea is to provide a simple, yet poweful image processing service to the average online user who has no knowledge of complex image processing software, allowing the …
Moscow startup Gfranq turns amateurs into professional photographers Read More
Good luck guys! Fresh off its insignificant $91 million IPO on NASDAQ, news is trickling in about Kayak.com’s ambitions in the Russian market. Stories on the web actually started breaking on July 19th, the day before the IPO, after the Quintura blog noted that Kayak.ru is forwarding to Kayak.com and identified the Russia & CIS …
Renthome.ru, a HomeAway.com clone offering short-term vacation rentals across Russia and the CIS, closed earlier this month an angel investment round of approximately $1 million. Participants in this round of investment include Russian and foreign entrepreneurs, as well as investors from the real estate market and finance sector, announced Fast Lane Ventures, which invested in …
Alternative accomodation websites attract VC money Read More
The Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) announced the results of the long-awaited tender to allocate four natiowide LTE frequencies, which took place last week. The results brought no surprises, with the “Big Three” Russian mobile operators MTS, Megafon and Vimpelcom, as well as the national …
LTE tenders won by leading national operators; Sweden’s Tele2 kept off the game Read More
An association of “smart cities” will be formed in Russia by the end of 2012, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported last week, citing Peter Schipper, the Director of the Department of Engineering and Transport Infrastructure of Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub nearing completion near Moscow. According to Schipper, the term ‘smart city’ implies a complex …
Association of “smart cities” to be formed in Russia Read More
Kirov city authorities intend to build a technopark specializing in information technologies. According to its plans, the Kirov technopark will be similar to Kazan’s IT Park, which is located in the Republic of Tatarstan. The regional authorities are carrying out a number of projects to develop IT technologies and promote the digital economy in the region. …
In a feint that has galvanized the Apple community and exposed an apparent flaw in the iOS, a Russian hacker has dodged official in-app purchase procedures and conned Apple’s App Store into letting him get paid content for free, Macworld magazine reports. Upon completing his hack last week, Alexey Borodin, the developer of the procedure, …
Russian hacker takes iOS in-app purchasing for a ride; Apple’s response middle-of-the-road Read More
The Moscow Seed Fund, a fund set up by the Moscow government to promote venture investment in local startups, announced earlier this month its decision to provide loans to innovative companies co-invested in by venture funds and business angels. A list of 12 such co-investors, picked on a tender basis, was approved by the fund. …
Moscow city’s seed fund teams up with VCs and angels to support innovation Read More
