The Samwer brothers’ now famous Berlin incubator, Rocket Internet, has bagged a whopping USD 200 mln in funding from Russian-American billionaire Len Blavatnik. With that investment, Blavatnik’s Access Industries will now be the second largest investor in Rocket Internet, after Swedish investment house Kinnevik’s recent Eur 300 mln that was pumped in during the last [...]

A JV partnership is brewing between Fast Lane Ventures and VTB Capital to tap the Russian internet market. VTB is doing this with a series C round of funding in Fast Lane valued at around USD 18 mln. Individual investors and business angels, apart from eVenture Capital Partners, are also named as participants in this [...]

Baring Vostok PE, through their Baring Vostok PE Fund IV, and Accel Partners have participated in a round of funding for Russia’s biggest classifieds portal Avito.ru. The USD 75 mln round of financing also saw existing investors Kinnevik and Northzone taking part in the series. Avito.ru currently boasts 30 mln unique monthly visitors, and the [...]

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has agreed to an equity investment of up to EUR 50 mln in the CapMan Group for its new Guernsey-based operation, CapMan Russia Fund II. The investment cannot exceed 30 percent of total capital commitments. The new fund’s objective is to acquire significant minority holdings in companies [...]

Java hosting platform Jelastic, based in the Ukraine, has raised a USD 2 mln fund from Almaz Capital and Foresight Ventures. The investment comes at a time when Java hosting is a tedious process involving a long list of compliance requirements. Jelastic’s team launched the beta version last October with the help of an initial [...]

Top League, one of Russia’s major players in the sports goods retail chain marketplace, has bagged a round of investment from VC fund CapMan, thorough their CapMan Russia unit. The investment will drive Top League’s Russia expansion plans at a speeded-up rate, and while CapMan will hold a significant minority stake, the remaining share of [...]

In what could turn out to be a nanotechnology-driven investment spree, RUSNANO this week led and closed a USD 79 mln round of investing in Quantenna Communications. The round was participated in by another new investor, Bright Capital. Other participants are all older investors: Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures and Sigma Partners are among six other [...]

RUSNANO has recently added to its nanotechnology portfolio with a EUR 25 mln investment in Beneq, Finland-based manufacturers of thin-film and specialized functional coating equipment and technologies. The investment was made in the form of share purchases and capital injection, and will be used to expand the company’s activities as well as focus on markets [...]

Yandex’s start-up financing wing Yandex.factory has invested an estimated USD 50,000 in Yekaterinburg’s Citrea. The target company is developing and online text-editing application that can be accessed by several users. The ‘crowd-editing’ company is currently in stealth mode, and first met up with the investors at the Yandex.start event in their home town in. December [...]

E-commerce in Russia gets yet another boost as Mallstreet.ru gets a round of funding from multiple investors. The online shopping portal recently received a round of financing from Franco-Israeli VC firm Kima Ventures (held by Jérémie Berrebi), Fabrice Grinda, super angel from France but based in the U.S. and Amber Venture Partners out of Amsterdam. Mallstreet.ru (mallstreet.ru) [...]

Leading Russian internet-centric VC firm Fast Lane Ventures has decided to sell its Shopping Live stake to Home Shopping Europe, a German company. Shopping Live was one of Fast Lane’s earliest and most successful portfolio companies to date, and marks Fast Lane’s second successful exit bid. Home Shopping Europe (www.hse24.de) Home Shopping Europe (HSE24)is a [...]

VC firm TA Venture has jointly invested  along with other angel investors in a USD1.2 mln round of financing for InBed.me, a budget travel and booking website for students and other cost-conscious travelers. The funding will be used to target specific geographical pockets and increase business growth there. InBed.me (www.inbed.me) InBed.me is a social platform that allows [...]

In a joint funding venture by German and Russian entities, Hepatera, a Russian pharmaceutical start up that makes liver treatment and disease prevention drugs, as well as its partner, German company MYR, have received funding from top German VC firm High-Tech Gründerfonds, as well as Russian Venture Capital (via its Maxwell Biotech Venture Fund). The investment will [...]

It’s a good week for Software-as-a-Service companies in Russia as two start-ups received funding from independent investment houses. MoeDelo, the accounting services company has been made part of Klever Asset Management‘s portfolio through the latter’s Klever Internet Investments. MoeDelo received USD 4 mln from the investors. Another Russian SaaS start-up, Megaplan, which provides CRM and [...]

Russian VC firm Runa Capital has just invested USD 1.5 mln in France-based Ubikod, which has developed an apps management platform called Capptain. The tool allows real-time capture of apps performance and usage data and provides customized reporting and excellent data visualization, and also enables two-way communication with its user base. Ubikod (www.ubikod.com) Ubikod is [...]

Dmitry Alimov, the VC guru who previously ran ru-Net, has launched another VC fund worth USD 50 mln to focus on the Russian early-stage internet consumer market. Launched through Frontier Ventures, the fund will target Russian internet companies operating sectors like mobile applications, online travel services and online financial services.  The increased activity in internet [...]

Russian PE fund Quadro Capital has acquired a minority stake in online foreign exchange, equities and commodities brokerage firm Forex Club. The investment will be used to strengthen the target company’s Russian language support in local markets, as well as to acquire new business from both developed and emerging countries’ markets. Forex Club (www.fxclub.org) Forex Club [...]

Russian investment fund Digital Sky Technologies is planning on starting a tech fund worth USD 1 bln. With high profile companies like Facebook, Twitter and Airbnb, among others, already in its portfolio, the DST Global III fund will target late-stage development companies already valued at over USD 500 mln. Investors in the fund will receive [...]

In what is being talked about as the hottest news in Russian web company investment circles, online clothing retailer shoptime.ru has just received a USD 50 mln stamp of approval from its rival, KupiVIP. Shoptime.ru’s no-discount sales model that offers a permanent line of new apparel from popular brands contrasts with KupiVIP’s flash sales retail [...]

Wikimart.ru, the Russian online shopping mall that made it to the Forbes Top 30 Russian Internet Company List, has raised USD 30 million in fresh investments from Tiger Global Management and another Russian investor. Wikimart had previously raised USD 18 million from Tiger Global and another USD 1 million from business angels. Following the latest [...]