Quintura blog » News

Quintura: Visual Search for iPhone and iPad

Quintura — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:28:53 +0000

Quintura’s visual search for iPhone and iPad app for recipe search, Quintura Cook has been released. The iPhone visual search application offers a search for recipes using a tag cloud of words related to cooking theme.

The iPhone visual search app for web and image search Quintura Search is available at iTunes App Store.

Quintura Kids, a safe and visual way for kids to learn how to explore the web using a tag cloud, is also available at App Store.

More information about Quintura’s visual search for iPhone is at Quintura Mobile page at http://mobile.quintura.com/

We plan to release new search apps for iPhone as well as launch Quintura Kids and Quintura Cook for Android (via Android Market) and Symbian (via Ovi Store).

Odnoklassniki.ru Founder Albert Popkov to Sell its Interest to DST

Quintura — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:33:07 +0000

The leading Russian internet investment group, Digital Sky Technologies (DST), which owns 80 percent interest in leading Russian social network Odnoklassniki.ru, is acquiring the remaining 20 percent stake from Odnoklassniki.ru founder, Albert Popkov. The deal could be valued at between $14 million and $28 million, according to newspaper Vedomosti. Albert Popkov raised several million dollar from DST over few funding rounds in 2006 – 2007.

Having recently acquired full control in Mail.ru from Naspers, DST, which plans IPO in London in 2011, plans to consolidate its holdings in other Russian internet ventures ahead of the IPO. DST could be valued at $6 billion at IPO next year.

Founded in March 2006, Odnoklassniki.ru generated revenues of $49 million in 2009 from display advertising, paid services, contextual links and social games. Odnoklassniki.ru‘s net income reached $11 million in 2009.

Odnoklassniki, which has 45 million registered accounts, attracts 10 million daily users.

Groupon Invests in Russian Darberry.ru

Quintura — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:30:35 +0000

Russian group discount site Darberry.ru has raised several million in new round of venture funding from world’s leading group buying service Groupon. As a result, Groupon obtained a majority stake in Darberry. The deal could be considered as acquisition of Darberry by Groupon,which expanded its group discount buying service in Russia.

Darberry‘s previous investor eVenture Capital Partners, which also co-invested in this round, should have shopped the deal to Groupon. In early 2010, eVenture Capital sold German group discount site CityDeal to Groupon. In 2010, Darberry got first funding from Russian internet incubator AddVenture.

Launched in March 2010, Darberry.ru has more than 180,000 subscribers. The site claimes that it saved almost $0.5 million to its subscribers since launch. Darberry currently operates in seven Russian cities. The Darberry service shall expand in other cities in Russia as well as in Ukraine with the new funding.

Russia’s leading internet investment holding Digital Sky Technologies (via its affiliate DST Global) contributed a majority of Groupon’s latest funding of $135 million in April 2010.

In July 2010, ABRT Fund and Mangrove Capital invested in Russian group purchasing service KupiBonus.ru. The site focuses on selling beauty service coupons to women.

VGTRK to kick off Barclays Premier League on Sport 1

Quintura — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:10:31 +0000

The Russian state broadcaster VGTRK will start new pay TV channel Sport 1 on August 14, the news channel Vesti.ru reported. Sport 1 shall be available via major cable TV operators in Russia.

Sport 1 will broadcast all ten football matches of each match day of the Barclays Premier League in England. The matches will be shown in HD quality. Up to three Premier League matches of each match day will be shown on Rossiya 2, a free-to-air Russia-nationwide TV channel owned by VGTRK.

VGTRK acquired the rights for the Premier League for the next three years for more than $10 million from Advisers Media International (AMI), according to newspaper Kommersant. AMI won the Premier League rights for Russia last May.

P&G Leads List of Top 10 Online Display Advertisers in Russia

Quintura — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:29:51 +0000

Russian online display advertising spendings accounted for 2,967 million Rubles ($100 million) in H1 2010, up 18% from the same period in 2009 while display ad spendings of top 10 advertisers accounted for 1,157 million Rubles, up 72% from the same period last year, reported newspaper Kommersant.

The list of top 10 online display advertisers in Russia in H1 2010 (according to MindShare Interaction) includes:

1. Procter & Gamble (220 million Rubles or $7.3 million),

2. Renault-Nissan (182 million Rubles or $6.1 millon),

3. MTS (135 million Rubles or $4.5 million),

4. Megafon (126 million Rubles or $4.2 million),

5. Volkswagen Audi Group (110 million Rubles or $3.7 million),

6. VimpelCom (102 million Rubles or $3.4 million),

7. Peugeout Citroen (86 million Rubles or $2.9 million),

8. Samsung (70 million Rubles or $2.3 million),

9. LG Electronics (67 million Rubles or $2.2 million)

10. Nokia (59 million Rubles or $2.0 million)

It is noticable that Procter & Gamble has become top online display advertiser in Russia for the first time. P&G increased its online display ad spendings by 5 times: from 44 million Rubles in H1 2009 to 220 million Rubles in H1 2010. P&G is the biggest TV advertiser in Russia with TV ad spendings estimated at 1,500 million Rubles in H1 2010.

It is estimated that the car manufacturers in Russia spent 750 million Rubles ($25 million) on online display advertising in H1 2010 while FMCG companies were the second biggest spenders with 600 million Rubles ($20 million).

Forbes Media Wins Forbes.ru Domain Name in Russia

Quintura — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:29:30 +0000

The Forbes magazine publisher Forbes Media LLC, which is represented in Russia by its licensee Axel Springer Russia publishing house, has become the owner of Forbes.ru domain name in Russia. Forbes reached a settlement with Landmark VIP Services who previously owned the Forbes.ru domain name, the company announced.

Axel Springer Russia and Forbes won a domain name law suit last January. However, Landmark VIP Services disagreed with that decision and filed an appellation that was then approved. The two parties finally reached a settlement regarding the Forbes.ru domain name.

Axel Springer launched Forbes Russia online at Forbesrussia.ru in September 2009. Forbes is a leading Russian business magazine with an average circulation of 110,000 copies and more than 820,000 monthly readers. Axel Springer, which also publishes Newsweek and ComputerBild magazines in Russia, extended publishing cooperation with Forbes in Russia until 2020.

In November 2009, Axel Springer acquired the Russian business of German publisher G+J (Gruner+Jahr).

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

Quintura — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:58:37 +0000

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 Beaucoup.ru.

Quintura Search for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

Quintura — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 09:37:17 +0000

Quintura’s mobile search app for web and image search has been released. It offers a visual search using a tag cloud of related words.

Quintura Search for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is available at iTunes App Store.

Quintura Kids, a safe and visual way for kids to learn how to explore the web using a tag cloud, is already available at App Store.

Next, there is Quintura Cook. More information is at Quintura Mobile page at http://mobile.quintura.com/

With several million new iPhones and iPads being sold every month and over 100 million iPhones being used around the world, Quintura‘s innovative visual search apps shall become popular quite shortly.

We also plan to release Quintura Kids and Quintura Cook for Android (via Android Market) and Symbian (via Ovi Store).

DST Russia Could Be Valued at $6 Billion at IPO in 2011

Quintura — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:03:15 +0000

Digital Sky Technologies‘ Russian investment holding, DST Russia, which owns online portal Mail.ru, ICQ, majority of social network Odnoklassniki.ru and other internet assets in Russia, is expected to do IPO of between 10% and 25% of its shares in London in spring 2011, according to both WSJ and Vedomosti newspapers. DST Russia could be valued at $6 billion, Vedomosti said, thus implying value of stake to be sold at IPO at between $600 million and $1,500 million.

DST hired investment banks Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan to manage the IPO.

DST, which recently consolidated 100% stake in Mail.ru from Naspers, plans to consolidate 100% of Odnoklassniki.ru. In addition, DST holds significant minority stakes in social network Vkontakte.ru, online recruiting firm HH.ru (HeadHunter), instant payment terminal operator OE Investments (QIWI), and others.

Rambler to Merge with Afisha; Has New CEO Nikolay Molibog from Afisha

Quintura — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:26:23 +0000

Prof-Media, which owns leading Russian online portal coimpany Rambler Media and entertainment content magazine publisher Afisha, will merge the two companies. The merged company under Rambler shall have annual revenues of over $150 million and challenge the Russian Internet maket leaders Yandex, Mail.ru/DST and Google in Russia. I think that combining Afisha and Rambler would improve operational effeciency and provide Afisha with traffic from Rambler properties.

Olga Turischeva, who became Rambler CEO in April 2009, is going to leave Rambler Media by the year-end. The Rambler-owner Prof Media has appointed Nikolay Molibog as new CEO of Rambler. Previously, Nikolay Molibog was CEO of Afisha publishing house, which is owned by Prof Media.

Afisha publishes leading entertainment content magazines and web-sites Afisha.ru and NightParty.ru while Rambler operates a leading online portal in Russia, Rambler.ru.

Rambler‘s search market share in Russia decreased from 4.9% in March 2009 to 2.6% in June 2010, according to LiveInternet.ru. Rambler‘s advertising revenues declined over the past year. The expenses declined even faster, which improved operational profitability but that may be not enough for Olga Turischeva to stay in. She could re-join Vimpelcom (Beeline) where she worked prior to Rambler.

Tiger Global Acquires 40% Stake at Anywayanyday.com Online Ticket Sales Site

Quintura — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:44:51 +0000

The private equity firm Tiger Global Management acquired a 40% stake in online air ticket booking site Anywayanyday.com for $10 million, reported newspaper Vedomosti.

Anywayanyday is owned by an affiliate of Valars, a major Russian grain trading company.

Focused on airline ticket sales, Anywayanyday was launched in 2008. The site has 50,000 daily visitors. It reported a sales turnover of 450 million Rubles ($14 million) in 2009. Anywayanyday, which holds 3% of Russian online airline ticket sales market valued at more than $500 million, plans increase its share to 15% by the end of the year. The Anywayanyday service plans to branch out into online hotel reservation as well as open a regional sales office in Ukraine.

Google Russian Revenues Reaches $69 Million in 2009

Quintura — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:29:25 +0000

Google’s Russian subsdiary, which holds less than 1/3 of Russian search market, reported revenues of $69 million (2.2 billion Rubles) in Russia in 2009, wrote newspaper Vedomosti. That is ca.10% of Russian internet advertising market valued at more than $600 million in 2009. Google‘s net income in Russia reached $4 million (126 million rubles) last year. The numbers will imply that Russia accounts for only 0.3% of Google’s annual revenues of $23.6 billion in 2009.

Google‘s revenues in Russia in 2009 were four times less than revenues of Yandex and twice as less as revenues of Mail.ru.

Google holds 22% share of Russian searches, behind Yandex with 66%, according to internet statisctics service LiveInternet.ru. Mail.ru holds 8% and Rambler holds 3% search share in Russia.