The companies Unilever Russia, Mars, Inc., Magnit, and Yandex Lavka have all pulled their advertisements from the YouTube show ‘Comment Out’ after a guest on the show was asked to make offensive social media posts about the ongoing protests in Belarus and Khabarovsk. The episode in question came out on August 31. It featured Russian singer Lolita …
Last week Mercuryo.io, a Russian-founded startup based in Estonia, announced the completion of its first round of funding, having received €2.5 million from Target Global. Mercuryo.io has built a cross-border cryptocurrency payment network for businesses – allowing for transactions from and to anywhere in the world. This infrastructure offers solutions for virtual accounts, business payments, …
Target Global bets on Russo-Estonian startup “to disrupt crypto payments” Read More
Yandex and Uber yesterday announced agreements to spin off their self-driving vehicle business from Yandex.Taxi, the taxi-hailing and food tech joint venture they formed three years ago. The spin-off, dubbed ‘Yandex Self Driving Group B.V.’ or ‘Yandex SDG,’ will be directly owned by Yandex and Uber. The NASDAQ-listed Russian Internet giant will invest $150 million in the new company, on …
Yandex and Uber form dedicated company for self-driving business Read More
Two major Russian corporate funds, Rusnano Sistema and the IIDF, have just announced an investment in Texel, a startup which has designed an advanced 3D scan technology. The capital injection, which amounts to 110 million rubles, or $1.46 million at the current exchange rate, will be used to boost Texel’s international expansion. Over the past two years, …
Russian 3D scan provider secures $1.5 million to “digitize the entire planet” Read More
Huawei increased its investment in Russia after the US slapped the Chinese telecoms giant with sanctions last year, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said. “After the United States included us in the Entity List, we transferred our investment in the U.S. to Russia, increased Russian investment, expanded the Russian team of scientists and increased the salary of Russian …
Russian Internet users have shared the personal data of nearly every voter in Michigan (7.6 million of the state’s 7.8 million voters), as well as the information of another million voters in Arkansas, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Florida, according to the newspaper Kommersant. The data recently appeared on a Darknet forum, posted by a user nicknamed …
Russian Darkweb shares personal data of nearly 9 million US voters Read More
While the USA and Western Europe are the most usual playing ground for VC funds with Russian connections, there are some exceptions. Digital Horizon, an investment company with offices in London, Moscow and Tel Aviv, announced an investment in Healthlane, an African startup providing healthcare services in Nigeria and Cameroon. Healthlane’s approach combines remote and face-to-face health …
Digital Horizon invests in African healthcare startup Read More
Roskomnadzor, the Russian Internet and telecom regulator, has blocked popular Russian cryptocurrency exchange monitoring website Bestchange.ru for the third time. Bestchange.ru explained that it had been investigating how to unblock its domain but testing may take some time. This website, launched in 2007, is not restricted to just cryptocurrency. It helps users find the best offers online, including the …
Russia blocks cryptocurrency websites ahead of regulation Read More
Last week Mail.ru Group, the LSE-listed Russian Internet major, and Sberbank, the state-controlled financial and technology giant, announced a capital injection of 12 billion rubles (approximately $160 million) to develop their ‘O2O’ joint venture. Agreed in June last year, this JV combines the businesses of the two groups across a variety of fields, from ride-hailing …
Mail.Ru and Sberbank inject $160 million in their foodtech and mobility JV Read More
Last week, Yandex evacuated a part of its Belarusian employees to Russia following a police raid on its Minsk office amid the unrest in the city. According to the Russian search giant, the Belarusian police were seeking to seize user data. Thus, on August 13, unidentified armed people came to Yandex’s office, presenting themselves as …
Yandex offices raided by police in Minsk, employees evacuated to Moscow Read More
iFarm, a startup founded in Siberia but now headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, has secured $4 million from an international pool of investors led by Gagarin Capital. This California-based VC firm had led a previous $1 million round in early 2019. iFarm’s turnkey solutions “enable anyone to grow fresh vegetables, berries, greens and edible flowers for …
Rusnano, the Russian state-controlled nanotechnology corporation, has created a 4 billion ruble fund (around $53 million) to invest in digital technologies. Half of this amount came from state coffers as part of a national program to develop Russia’s digital economy, reported industry publication CNews.ru. Starting from the end of this year, under plans, the fund …
Rusnano to invest more than $50 million in digital technologies Read More
