Drimmi recently released its first social game, Рыбное Место (Fish Place). The game, which is about fishing, is available for playing on Vkontakte, the biggest Russian social network with over 60 million registered users.

Nikita Sherman, Founder & CEO of Drimmi (pictured to the left) said in an interview to BFM.ru last week that Drimmi raised $4 million from Mangrove Capital and ABRT in the first round.

He also said that the company will need the second round before it will enter global markets, likely at the end of 2010. Based in Moscow, Drimmi already opened two games development offices in Russian regional cities of Bryansk and Tolyatti.

Meantime, Facebook and Zynga investor Yuri Milner, who is CEO of largest Russian internet investor DST, said he has $1 billion to invest in social media outside of Russia.  Next ones may be Twitter and Foursquare.

RuTube and Mamba introduced cross-site registration and online communication for users of Video Dating (Видеознакомства), the first online video dating service in Russia.

Launched in 2006, the biggest Russian video sharing community RuTube was acquired by Gazprom Media in 2008.

Launched in 2002, online dating platform Mamba is owned by Finam (68.5%) and Mail.ru (31.5%). Mamba powers online dating service on Mail.ru, Rambler.ru, MSN.ru, and other portals. In 2008, Mamba generated revenues of $15 million with EBITDA margin of 47%.

As a result, Naspers/MIH and DST could merger their Polish internet assets, instant messaging service Gadu-Gadu and social network Nasza-Klasa.pl into a single entity that shall reach over a half of Polish internet users.

In addition to social networks Odnoklassniki.ru in Russia and One.lv & One.lt in the Baltic countries, Forticom owns 70% of Nasza-Klasa.pl, the leading social network in Poland with over 23 million registered users. Forticom acquired majority of Nasza-Klasa in 2008.

Naspers/MIH Group owns 100% in Gadu-Gadu, the leading Polish instant messaging service with 15 million registered users. Naspers acquired Gadu-Gadu for $155 million in 2007.

Poland has over 20 million internet users, which is 52% of 38 million population. The internet advertising market in Poland was valued at $370 million in 2009.

Finam invested about $1 million in Alawar in several stages in 2007. The valuation of Alawar increased several times to more than $12 million since that time, reported Vedomosti. Alexey Basov, Director of IT Investments at Finam and CEO at Begun, negotiated Finam’s investment and exit from Alawar.

Founded in 1999 by Alexander Lyskovsky and Sergey Zanin, Alawar Entertainment specializes in the development, publication and distribution of casual games. It is based in Novosibirsk, Russia with five development studios in different cities. Alawar distributes games to audiences in 60 countries worldwide through its own web-sites and online portals as well as offers a ‘white label’ solution for web-site owners to launch their own casual games sections. In 2009, the Russian casual games market was valued at more than $30 million. Alawar holds some 70% of the Russian market. More than a half of Alawar revenues come from USA and Europe.

Alawar published 24 casual games for PC last year, including Farm Frenzy 3, Vampire Saga: Pandora’s Box and The Treasures of Montezuma 2. The company also released 8 games for iPhone, 2 games for PlayStation 3 and several games for Android & Ovi platforms. In 2010, Alawar plans to enter the social games and MMO markets as well as expand onto other platforms.

Almaz Capital Russia Fund I previously invested in web-based ERP and financial software company Acumatica, mobile social network provider Apollo Project, virtualization and automatization software vendor Parallels, and search engine Yandex. The fund is managed by Almaz Capital Partners.

Launched in May 2009, Cocktail to a Friend (или Коктейль Другу in Russian) has over 8 million registered users with over 2 million daily users.

In December 2009, Mars’ candy bar Twix was promoted online in Russia using the Cocktail to a Friend application. Over 20 million virtual cocktails with Twix and Twix flavors were sent out by the users of Vkontakte social network in first two days after start of the promotion. The Cocktail to a Friend social network application is developed by Catalyst Apps.

Drimmi, social games developer founded in 2009 by Nikita Sherman, former chairman of Odnoklassniki.ru, has raised an undisclosed funding from Mangrove Capital Partners and ABRT Fund. David Waroquier, partner at Mangrove Capital Partners, led the round on behalf of the Luxembourg-based venture capital firm. David Waroquier pointed to the Russian social gaming market’s “high levels of users engagement and strong monetization history” in Drimmi’s official deal announcement. The funds agreed to invest several million into Drimmi in exchange for over a twenty percent stake in the company.  Mangrove Capital is also an investor in online trivia game maker Amuso.

Founded in September 2009, Drimmi has a team of twenty game developers and marketers in Moscow. Drimmi, which is headed by CEO Nikita Sherman and COO Viktor Zakharchenko, aims to become #1 Russian social games developer.

The investment will be used for games development and launch on Russian social networks Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki.ru and MoiMir@Mail.ru. The first game will be released in a few weeks with more than ten games to follow in 2010. Drimmi CEO Nikita Sherman also worked as CEO of Russia’s leading online dating platform Mamba, where he introduced micro-payments for premium services.

Mangrove Capital and ABRT previously teamed up in Russia to invest in visual-based search engine Quintura, in-game advertising company EnterMedia and online shopping club KupiVIP.ru (which just raised $20 million from Accel, Mangrove and the others.)

The Russian social network users shall expect a lot of new social games in 2010. For example, the game Vesely Fermer (Веселый Фермер) was developed by i-Jet, an Yekaterinburg-based company with studios in Nizhniy Tagil and Chelyabinsk.

KupiVIP.ru has reached over 1.3 million registered users in January 2010. The company, which organized more than 1,200 sales events with 500 brands in 2009, has over 150 employees.

KupiVIP.ru was named top Russian web startup of 2009.

Mangrove Capital is also investor in visual search engine Quintura and in-game advertising company EnterMedia.

The list includes startup internet companies from Russia, which launched new online services and raised venture capital funding in 2009. The below startups were involved in major Russian venture capital deals in 2009.

1. The leading Russian online shopping club, KupiVIP.ru has reached over 1 million registered users since launch in late 2008. Founded by CEO Oskar Hartmann, the Moscow-based company raised a new funding of over $10 million from Mangrove Capital Partners, ABRT Fund, Arlan and Direct Group in 2009.

2. The major independent women-centric online portal in Russia, WomanJournal.ru has recently re-launched the site. Founded by French Direct Group in late 2006, WomanJournal.ru agreed to merge with Passion.ru in November 2009 to create the online market leader for Russian women with over 5 million monthly users.

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3. The electronic note application service, Evernote has reached 2 million users by launching versions for all major mobile and computer desktop platforms. Founded by Stepan Pachikov in 2006, Evernote raised a new funding of $12 million from Morgenthaler Ventures and DOCOMO Capital in 2009 to expedite growth by releasing local language versions and expanding software OS platforms.

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4. On-demand online movie service, VidiMAX is expected to launch in spring 2010. The company raised more than $4 million from Troika Venture Fund ahead of the launch.

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5. Founded in the middle of 2008, Russia’s first online shopping mall, WikiMart boasts high-profile business angel investors. The company, which raised several hundred thousand dollars from Western investors in May 2009, faces a challenge to grow regular traffic to the site above current 5 thousand daily visitors.

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6. 3D web-enabled social gaming developer, CloudMatch renders the 3D world in a cloud and delivers 3D graphics to Web browsers using AJAX. Founded by Max Gannutin and Andrey Kazakov in 2009, Mountain View, CA and St. Petersburg, Russia-based CloudMatch offers 3D postcards Facebook application CloudCards and develops 3D chat/virtual room application CloudChat. The company is also involved in co-production of social games with game publishers. CloudMatch is looking for its first major venture capital funding.

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7. Personal computer security software vendor, SafenSoft delivers new standards of protection against computer viruses, trojans, exploits and hackers. Founded in 2006 by CEO Mikhail Kalinichenko as spin-off of StarForce, SafenSoft raised $3.6 million from Troika Venture Fund in March 2009 and entered the U.S. market with SafenSec products in November 2009.

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8. Virtual computing company iCore Software has launched beta version of iCore Virtual Accounts (VA), container-based virtualization for Windows desktop, for free download. iCore VA are isolated virtual machines that run on top of existing hardware and operating system. Founded in 2007 by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology PhD students Artem Prokopenko and Nikita Parfenov, iCore Software raised seed funding from ABRT Fund.

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9. Create-your-own-avatar (”inf”) service “А-я-яй.ру” (iii.ru) was launched in March 2009 by online expert systems and virtual assistant service developer Nanosemantics. In June 2009, iii.ru reached 100,000 registered users. The avatar can be trained and embedded into your own site or blog. The company is funded by Natalya Kaspersky, CEO of InfoWatch and her husband Igor Ashmanov.

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10. WiFi-based geolocation service provider Wi2Geo (Wireless to Geographic) offers its online and mobile users a range of location-based services from its online partners. Launched in Moscow in July 2008, Wi2Geo has raised funding from Kite Ventures of Edward Shenderovich.

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JS-Kit

Most of Echo’s traffic comes from its top ten customers such as CBS/CNet, Discovery News, Dow Jones Local Media Group, Hearst Digital News, and others, according JS-Kit Echo CEO Khris Loux.

Launched in 2006, Echo (JS-Kit) raised $5 million in venture capital. It offers its commenting service to online publishers on subscription basis. The Echo (JS-Kit) team of 23 including managers and engineers is based in the U.S. and Russia.

Formed in September 2008, Nival Network develops, publishes and operates free-to-play online games in Russia and former Soviet countries. The company has game development studios in Moscow and Minsk. Nival Network is currently majority owned by Sergey Orlovskiy. Software vendor 1C Group owns a 30% stake in Nival Network.

Nival operates a leading Russian online gaming and social networking portal ZZima. The company’s game portfolio includes such MMORPG titles as Dragonica; Shaiya: Light and Darkness; Cabal Online, multiplayer racer Level-R, browser-based strategy offering Khan Wars 2.0 and music game RockFree.

The Russian online game market is valued at $238 million in 2009, of which MMOGs account for $210 million and casual games account for $28 million.

Per and Susanne Koch, editors of Pandia, said about Quintura Kids:

“..If these are not what you were looking for, a search cloud hovers above: Your search term is highlighted in the middle of related terms. As you point your mouse to the terms in the cloud, Quintura modifies your query and the search results. Even though this might not be as intuitive as Boolify, it is easy to understand how Quintura Kids works.”

The Quintura search cloud helps to determine user intent and gives search directions. In addition to Quintura Kids, Quintura offers hosted site search service for online publishers, Quintura Site Search.

Founded in 2006, Evernote has 2 million users. The service, which is available in English and Russian, works online and on mobile devices BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Palm Pre as well as on Windows and Mac computers.

Evernote utilizes a “freemium” business model. The basic service is free but offers a limited amount of online storage space. For a small monthly fee, users get more storage, increased security and can share notes.