Russian Ecommerce Boom: Tiger Global Invests $5 Million in Wikimart Online Mall

Files under: News, Web 2.0
Posted by: Quintura @ 02:58 [9. 08. 10]

The private equity firm Tiger Global Management has invested $5 million in exchange for a 50% stake in Russian online mall Wikimart, according to newspaper Vedomosti. The deal was completed in May 2010. In June 2009, Wikimart raised $0.7 million from a group of Western business angel investors.

Launched in February 2009, Wikimart has over 2,000 online merchants that offer over 410,000 products. Wikimart‘s merchants generate a monthly sales turnover of $1.5 million. The site, which has 150,000 monthly visitors (according to Rating@Mail.ru), earnes some 3 percent of sales revenues generated by the merchants.

Wikimart was founded by Russian entrepreneurs Maxim Faldin and Kamil Kurmakayev in June 2008 who were Stanford MBA students at that time. Wikimart, which is based in Moscow, employs 50 people.

Tiger Global Management recently invested $10 million in online travel sales site Anywayanyday in Russia. Tiger is also an investor in Russian search engine Yandex. Previously, Tiger was an investor in leading Russian online portal Mail.ru.

The Russian ecommerce market is going to reach $6 billion in 2010. In January 2010, online shopping club KupiVIP.ru raised $20 million from Accel Partners and other investors. German Otto Group-backed eVenture Capital Partners invested in daily coupon site Darberry and online shoe store Sapato while Mangrove Capital and ABRT Fund invested in beauty coupon site KupiBonus.ru.

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