Fast Lane Ventures, the Moscow-based serial Internet startup developer, yesterday announced a radical move to address its growing HR needs: the opening of Fast Lane Academia, a regional office in Ivanovo – a city 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow – which will hire and train young specialists to support its portfolio companies. Fifty Ivanovo graduates …
Fast Lane Ventures to hire and train staff from Ivanovo Read More
Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub now nearing completion near Moscow, is considering opening a rep office in China, reports Seda Pumpyanskaya, Skolkovo’s Vice-president for International Relations and Communications and a participant in the most recent round of talks between the parties. According to the Skolkovo envoy, the potential partners have made “substantial headway in charting …
Skolkovo cements ties with China on Putin’s fast track Read More
Yesterday, Paris-based Olma Invest SAS announced it has invested €1 million in Dimeres, a group of e-commerce and e-marketing companies operating in the field of fashion, in exchange for a 25% stake. Founded in 2011 by French entrepreneurs Maximilien Jacquet and Frédéric Bonelli, Dimeres has adapted successful shopping models from Western markets. Among the Dimeres …
A major player on the Russian e-commerce scene suddenly emerged in late May: a cash-back e-commerce platform called Clickandpay.ru that claims to have raised $60 million to finance just the first stages of its development. After a few months operating in test mode, the site has already enrolled more than 50 e-shops, including such market …
First Russian cash-back marketplace launches; claims to have raised $60 million Read More
A consortium of investors led by Da Vinci Capital Partners, Insight Capital, Alpha Associates and Runa Capital has invested $45 million for a minority stake in B2B-Center.ru, the leading online procurement platform in Russia. This cash-out deal valued the company at an approximate $160 million, company founder Alexander Boyko told Russian business daily Vedomosti last …
Russian and Western funds acquire minority stakes in online procurement service B2B-Center Read More
Two important international tech events took place on May 28 and 29 in Moscow, nearly simultaneously and almost in the same location, a former chocolate factory in center town. The first was the legendary DLD Conference, making its Moscow debut, and the second event was an international startup and investor conference named “42.” The events …
From ‘Kalinka’ to high tech startups, two conferences showed Russia’s changing face Read More
Gala Records, Russia’s first private music record label, has withdrawn six legal claims it earlier advanced against Mail.ru Group for alleged rights infringement and instead inked a license agreement with the leading Russian Internet company, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported on Monday, citing direct exchanges with the two companies’ spokespersons. Under the terms of …
Gust, the investor relation platform connecting high-growth entrepreneurs and active early-stage investors, and the Russian National Association of Business Angels (NABA), announced last week they have signed an agreement to allow Russian investors to access Gust’s platform. NABA is a not-for-profit organization representing the organized business angels, seed funds, and other early-stage venture capitalist communities …
Russian business angels to access Gust’s international investment platform Read More
Speaktoit, a developer of technologies based on natural language conversations, announced last week it has received an investment from Intel’s investment arm, Intel Capital. The investment amount and the startup’s valuation are kept undisclosed. Founded in Russia in October, 2010, Speaktoit attracted angel money in January, 2011. It also received a grant from Skolkovo, the state-sponsored …
MTS, a leading mobile operator and telecom provider in Russia and the CIS, announced on Tuesday that its subsidiary MGTS has acquired a 100% stake in Tascom, a major provider of telecommunication services to corporate clients in Moscow and the Moscow region. Tascom previously belonged to Bester Investments Limited – which itself is owned by …
Aiming to develop Russia’s navigation and information service market, a group of Russian satellite service providers as well as telecom and Internet market players have established an industry association called Assistance in the Development and Use of Navigation Technologies. The initiative was announced earlier this month by national navigation service provider NIS GLONASS, which is …
New industry association to promote satellite geolocation services Read More
“No IPO is being planned. Facebook’s IPO has destroyed the trust of many individual investors in social networks, so [our] IPO is postponed indefinitely,” Vkontakte’s founder and co-owner Pavel Durov tweeted on Monday, answering a Russian journalist’s question. Durov had expressed his IPO intentions a mere five months ago at the DLD tech conference in …
