KupiVip’s CEO Oskar Hartmann confirms plans to hold an IPO in New York “within two years,” Reuters reported yesterday. “We have already made quite good progress and [an IPO] is likely. We need to grow to reach the size [of business] that allows us to do a round of $120 million or more,” Hartmann told reporters. …
KupiVip.ru confirms plans for IPO in New York “within 2 years” Read More
After weeks of rumors, Israeli face recognition startup Face.com officially announced yesterday its acquisition by Facebook. The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed, but two unnamed sources familiar with it told AllthingsD that the price was in the neighborhood of $60 million. The amount is significantly below the $100 million that had been rumored previously, but almost three …
Facebook acquires Face.com; shareholder Yandex may get stake in US social giant Read More
Odnoklassniki.ru, the second largest Russian-language social networking site, will soon be available in English. The decision was announced yesterday by Alexander Izryadnov, an executive at the Mail.ru Group, the LSE-listed Russian Internet group that is the site’s sole owner. “Odnoklassniki is used in 229 countries around the globe, the Pitcairn Islands being the sole exception,” …
In yet another step in its international expansion, Ru-Net, a major Russian venture fund, has invested $17 million in Freecultr.com and BeStylish.com, two Indian e-commerce companies. The news on the investment in Freecultr – a website that offers its own apparels brands – was initially reported earlier this month by Iamwire, an online publication dedicated …
Dmitry Grishin, the CEO of Mail.ru Group, the LSE-listed Russian Internet group, announced on Friday the launch of a New York City-based investment fund dedicated to robotics startups. The fund, named Grishin Robotics, intends to inject $25 million into 10 to 20 early stage or middle-size companies developing robots in the fields of home maintenance, education, …
Mail.ru Group CEO announces $25 million fund for robotics Read More
Leta GIV, the corporate venture arm of Leta Group, announced an investment earlier this week in Baltostorage, an online service that allows users to store their pictures in a secured way. The fund invested $350,000 for an undisclosed stake in the company. BaltoStorage claims it already stores more than 1.7 million files from 50,000 registered …
Leta GIV invests in photo storage startup BaltoStorage Read More
LinguaLeo, a Russian startup with a web service that teaches English using popular TV serials, books and contextual dialogues, has just secured $3 million from Runa Capital, a major Moscow-based venture fund. The site now serves 1.5 million registered users, of which 40,000 are paid subscribers, LinguaLeo founder Aynur Abdulnasyrov told East-West Digital News.
The Russian holding company ProfMedia is combining all its TV assets into one group. According to the Russian business daily Kommersant and Profmedia’s corporate website, TV3 , MTV and 2×2 will now be parts of a single structure. These channels will be headed by Nikolai Kartozya, formerly a director of prime time programs at NTV. …
Morgan Stanley has been mandated by Superjob.ru, a leading online recruitment platform with 3.2 million unique users monthly, to find a potential acquirer of a minority stake, Russian business daily Kommersant reported yesterday. “We would offer a minority stake to a partner whose good name on the NASDAQ could help us go public successfully,” Kommersant …
Superjob seeks minority shareholder “for successful IPO” Read More
Russia’s MTS will make digital TV services available across its entire network on July 1. Quoted in Vedomosti, Dimtri Bagdasaryan, director of the company’s fixed line and TV business, said that MTS expects to have 500,000 digital subscribers by the end of 2012 – it served a total of 2.99 million homes at the beginning …
With net sales reaching €470 million in 2011 – including 50% generated online – the Otto Group has asserted itself as a leading player on the Russian e-commerce scene. In this exchange with East-West Digital News, CEO Martin Schierer shares his vision of this fast-growing market, speaking openly about the challenges of building a multichannel …
BIT Contest, the largest tech contest in Russia and neighboring countries, will hold its finale on June 28 at Digital October, Moscow’s leading tech event organizer and venue. This year, more than 1,000 applications were received from all Russian regions as well as from neighboring Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Inspired by the MIT $100K competition, BIT contests …
Russia’s best startups set to emerge at BIT Contest Read More
