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Pixonic Funded by Ventech, Kite Ventures and TA Ventures

admin — Mon, 30 May 2011 12:24:15 +0000

Social game publisher Pixonic is one of the social game publishers in Russia. It was first funded by AddVenture. The Russian leading online travel agency Oktogo.ru venture capital investor Ventech as well as Kite Ventures of Edward Shenderovich and TA Ventures of Ukraine has put $5 million in Pixonic at a valuation of ca. $10 million, according to business daily newspaper Kommersant.

Update: According to Ventech founder and general partner Alain Caffi, his firm Ventech invested $2.5 million in $5 million round in Pixonic.

In Russia, Ventech of France previously invested in Oktogo and women-centric online portal WomanJournal.ru.

Ventech is also an investor in Crocus Technology that recently agreed a multi-million dollar investment with RUSNANO.

Skype Engineers ASI Makes First Exit in Russia

admin — Fri, 27 May 2011 14:14:25 +0000

The Estonian Skype engineers prvate equity vehicle Ambient Sound Investments (ASI), which made its first Russian investment in Software as A Service (SaaS) inventory management software provider LogneX (Moy Sklad) in 2008, has sold its stake in LogneX to Russian ERP software provider 1C Company. In the future, 1C plans to increase its stake in LogneX (moysklad.ru) by an equity capital increase.

According to Margus Uudam of ASI, the Estonian firm Ambient Sound Investments generated positive return from its investment in Moy Sklad (МойСклад). In early 2008, ASI invested $0.2 million for a 30% stake in LogneX.

Founded in 2007, LogneX has over 400 small and medium-sized business customers who use its Moy Sklad web-based inventory management service. Moscow-based LogneX (Moy Sklad) is headed by CEO Askar Rahimberdiev.

Yandex IPO Creates Bonanza for Cisco Russian Fund Almaz Capital

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 14:57:05 +0000

Almaz Capital Russia Fund I, Russia-focused venture capital fund that is backed by Cisco, shall have returned all money to investors with just two investments, fund’s Managing Partner Alexander “Sasha” Galitsky revealed on twitter. Those investments should have been made by Almaz in Qik and Yandex. Almaz‘s first close was at $60 million. Then, Almaz added $30 million from EBRD.

Mobile video software provider Qik was acquired by Skype for over $150 million in January 2011.

Russia’s leading search engine company Yandex went IPO at $8 billion valuation on NASDAQ on May 24. Almaz Capital acquired a stake in Yandex at $1 billion valuation in September 2009.

Almaz Capital Managing Partner Peter Loukianoff was recently on the Board of Directors of Qik and managed Almaz‘s investment in Yandex.

In addition to Qik and Yandex, Almaz Capital invested into ERP software provider Acumatica, casual game publisher Alawar Entertainment, mobile social network provider Apollo, virtuallization software vendor Parallels and online travel agency Travelmenu.

2GIS City Map Service Stands Against Yandex.Maps and Google.Maps

admin — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:17:34 +0000

While Yandex will go IPO on NASDAQ this month, its popular Russian online map service is being challenged by 2GIS‘ Russian city guide and map services. Being available for more than 100 Russian cities, 2GIS has released its Moscow city guide and map service. 2GIS maps and city guides include more corporate information details than both Yandex.Maps (Яндекс.Карты) and Google.Maps.

Founded in 2004, DoubleGIS (ДубльГИС) reported sales of ca. $35 million in 2010. Based in Novosibirsk, 2GIS offers digital maps and city guides for more than 100 cities in Russia and Ukraine. The 2GIS maps, which are free to use, are supported by advertisements.

DoubleGIS released its 2GIS app for Android, Windows and Symbian. There is no 2GIS app for iPhone yet.

In 2010, Yandex acquired GIS Technology for Yandex.Maps.

The German Otto Group-backed eVenture Capital invested in Mapia.ua online map service in Ukraine in 2009.

Skyscanner for Russia, Jizo.ru Launches with Funding from Fast Lane Ventures

admin — Mon, 16 May 2011 07:18:07 +0000

Aimed to be Skyscanner for Russia, Jizo.ru travel meta-search engine has launched with funding from internet business incubator Fast Lane Ventures. While Edinburg, Scotland-based Skyscanner developed its innovative proprietary search engine technology, Jizo.ru used solution from GP Solutions GmbH, a Germany/Belarus travel IT solutions company. Jizo.ru already faces competion from Russia’s leading search engine Yandex that offers travel meta-search on ticket.yandex.ru.

Launched in May 2011, Jizo.ru is headed by CEO Sergei Lavrentyev and CTO Andrey Antipov. CEO Sergei Lavrentyev was previously e-commerce director at Amargo.com and Russia Country Manager at EB2 International. CTO Andrey Antipov was previoulsy CIO of online travel agencies Amargo.com, Anywayanyday and Avantix. For now, Jizo.ru offers airline ticket meta-search only. Jizo.ru employs CPC and CPA business model by re-directing users to online travel sites. Jizo is reportedly a Buddhist protector of travellers and pilgrims.

Yandex and Jizo.ru display search results of airline ticket prices from online travel agencies’ (OTA) sites including Agent.ru, Amargo, Avantix, Anywayanyday, DAVS, Nabortu, OZON.Travel, Pososhok.ru, and SINBAD.

Kaspersky Lab Revenues Reached $0.5Bn+; Largest Software Company in Russia

admin — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:17:08 +0000

World’s largest privately-held Internet security company, Kaspersky Lab has oficially become the largest software and Internet company in Russia. It is bigger than Yandex, which reported revenues of ca. $410 million in 2010.

Founded in 1997, Kaspersky Lab reported revenue of $538 million in 2010, up 38% from 2009. The company generated revenue of $218 million (up 16% year-on-year) in Europe; $131 million (up 35% y-o-y) – in EEMEA region, $134 million (up 68% y-o-y) – in Americas, and $55 million (up 111% y-o-y) – in APAC region. The company operates in three business areas such as consumer products and services, corporate solutions and technology licensing to other vendors.

In January 2011, General Atlantic acquired a 20% stake in Kaspersky Lab for $200M+. Kaspersky Lab plans to become top 3 vendor in global endpoint secutity market.

SaaS Online Meeting YaM Labs Gets $0.5 Million

admin — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 18:11:15 +0000

Online meeting SaaS startup yaM Labs of Anatoly Gaverdovskiy from Russia has secured $0.5 million funding from business angel investors. The investment round was led by Foresight Ventures, according to Techcrunch Europe.

Founded in 2010, yaM Labs aims to utilize a freemium model for online meetings in the cloud.

Moscow-based Foresight Ventures of Vladislav Sviblov and Andrey Kazakov also invested in 3D rendering engine technology Cloudmach (top 10 Russian web startup of 2010), iQueLab (iNNtelligenz), SaEx, Sewage Treatment (Hydroeco), and others.

Anatoly Gaverdovsky is a founder of software outsourcing development company VDI (Vested Development Inc.) that was merged into EPAM Systems in 2006.

Anatoly Gaverdovsky is also a founder of InvisibleCRM, a technology provider of tools engineered to increase user adoption and ROI of enterprise applications by seamlessly integrating them into the way businesspeople work every day.

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Parallels Appoints New CEO; Considers IPO in 2011

admin — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:53:43 +0000

Virtualization software company Parallels, which has R&D offices in Moscow and Novosibirsk of Russia, was said to be discussing IPO on NASDAQ in autumn 2011, according to newspaper Kommersant. Another fact will now imply about upcoming IPO. The company appointed seasoned executive with IPO experience, Birger Steen as new CEO. Birger took over CEO position from Parallels founder Serguei Beloussov who will continue as Executive Chairman of the Board and Chief Architect. Birger Steen was CEO of Scandinavia Online AB that was listed on the Stockholm and Oslo Stock Exchanges in 2000.

Founded in 1999, Parallels reported revenues of more than $100 million in 2010. The company is profitable with a gross margin of more than 90 percent. Parallels, which is headquartered in Seattle, employs over 800 staff globally.

Parallels holds 78 percent of cloud services enablement and desktop virtualization market, according to NPD Group. Its Parallels Desktop for Mac is the number one selling software for running Windows and Mac applications side-by-side on a Mac without rebooting.

In 2005, Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Insight Venture Partners made an investment in Parallels. In 2009, Almaz Capital Partners acquired Insight stake in Parallels. In 2010, Siguler Guff‘s Russian investment firm, Russia Partners invested in Parallels.

The Russian search engine company Yandex plans $1 billion IPO on NASDAQ in summer 2011.

Russian SaaS Provider SKB Kontur Reports Sales of $76 Million in 2010

admin — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:13:52 +0000

The leading Russian provider of “software as a service” (SaaS), SKB Kontur has reported sales of 2.29 billion Roubles (ca. $76 million) in 2010, up 27% from 1.8 billion Roubles in 2009.

Founded in 1988, SKB Kontur is the largest SaaS provider in Russia. SKB Kontur has over 1 million corporate users among small- and medium-sized businesses in Russia. Its major service is Kontur-Extern, submitting federal tax returns via Internet. Other services include online accounting, headcount and payroll; electronic document exchange and online legal database.

Mangrove Capital Backs SaaS Startup SohoOS

admin — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:07:00 +0000

The leading European early-stage investment firm Mangrove Capital Partners has invested $1.75 million in SaaS provider of business management tools, SohoOS. The company offers its services for free to small and micro business owners. Mangrove partner Michael Jackson joined SohoOS‘ Board of Directors.

Founded in 2009, SohoOS is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and New York. The company, which is run by CEO Ron Daniel, raised some $1.25 million from Israeli venture capital firm The Time and private investors.

Mangrove Capital previously invested in Wix, Flash website creation and management service. Wix is based in Israel and New York.

Yandex to Acquire WebVisor Site Analytics Assets

admin — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 09:48:21 +0000

The leading Russian search engine Yandex has acquired the WebVisor site analytics technology and related assets for ca. $0.5 million from Visor Ltd., reported newspaper Vedomosti. The WebVisor developing team will be joining Yandex. The WebVisor analytics will be integrated into Yandex‘ own web analytics service Yandex.Metrika (Яндекс.Метрика).

Launched in early 2009, WebVisor offers site audit and usability analysis to 16,000 websites. WebVisor was founded by Arthur Suilin in 2008. The WebVisor analytics helps watch site browsing behavior, optimize site usability and improve conversion rates. The service is similar to ClickTale. RBS Corporation, a SEO company invested in Visor into development of WebVisor in summer 2008.

Runa Capital to Invest $0.5 Million in Hivext Cloud Platform

admin — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:16:35 +0000

Runa Capital, early-stage venture capital firm that was recently created by Parallels and Acronis founder Serguei Beloussov and Almaz Capital Partners founder Alexander Galitsky, has invested $0.5 million in Hivext cloud-based platform service developer Hivext Technologies. Previously, Hivext got $0.1 million funding from software distributor Softline when it won Dev Generation 2010 contest.

Launched in 2008, Hivext offers cloud platform as a service (PaaS) to web application developers. Hivext cloud platform is curently being used by some 3,000 developers. Hivext is run by the founders, CEO Ruslan Sinitskiy and CTO Konstantin Alexandrov. Hivext.com, which is currently available in beta, is scheduled for commercial release in Q3 2011.

Hivext offers a low-cost alternative to Windows Azure, Google Apps Engine and Heroku (SalesForce).

Runa Capital, which was launched in August 2010, recently invested $2 million in voice-enabled mobile social networking platform OnAir3G.