Russian DST to Invest US$180 Mln in Chinese Internet Startups

Sept. 5 – Russian venture capitalist Yuri Milner, together with American angel investor Ron Conway, will invest US$180 million in Beijing-based Innovation Works. Milner’s efforts to launch the same high-tech investment firm in Russia hasn’t yet been crowned with success.

In a press release, Innovation Works (which was founded by former Google China head Kai-Fu), announced that it has also raised money from WI Harper, Silicon Valley Bank, Baillie Gifford, Sequoia Capital, Singapore Telecom, Mediatek, Foxconn, New Oriental, SAP, Bertelsmann, Motorola and other international investors. It is uncertain how much each investor put into the fund. Read the rest of this entry »

PayPal to Enter Russian e-Payments Market

Aug. 26 – American payment system PayPal will begin carrying out money transfers in Russia and the Ukraine starting from the end of September, the company said in a statement.

The PayPal web site has published new money transfer tariffs that will come into force on September 24.

The fee for sending money to Russia will range from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent depending on the country you are sending it from. Sending money within Russia will cost 1 percent. Read the rest of this entry »

Russian Companies Continue to Expand Abroad

May 17 – Russia’s third biggest mobile phone company VimpelCom has agreed to a US$420 million deal to buy New Telephone Company (NTC) from South Korea’s KT Corp and Summit Telecom Global Management, Sumitomo Corporation’s subsidiary.

VimpelCom said it planned to close the 90 percent acquisition within four weeks. After the acquisition, the company is planning on launching a mandatory buyout offer according to Russian law to purchase the remaining 10 percent of the NTC shares. The completion of the deal is expected in the third quarter of 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

Internet Access Costs to Decline in Russia

Apr. 26 – The cost for yearly Internet access in Russia has fallen between 30 percent and 60 percent, according to a survey from the country’s leading Internet firm Yandex.

The Ural Federal District saw the lowest prices at around US$5.7 per 1 Mbit/s, while the most expensive access area for a network has been registered in the Russian Far East at around US$32.2 per 1 Mbit/s. Read the rest of this entry »

Russia 77th in Global ICT Report

Apr. 13 – Russia has moved up three positions this year to 77th overall with improvements across the board, according to The Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011, Transformations 2.0, released yesterday by the World Economic Forum.

The report remains the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative international assessment of the impact of ICT on the development process and the competitiveness of nations. Read the rest of this entry »

Russian DST Global to Raise its Stake in Facebook

Jan. 12 – The Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies Global, together with Goldman Sachs, has become one of the biggest owners of Facebook – investing US$500 million in the world’s top online social networking company.

The firms also plan to raise at least US$1 billion in additional funding for Facebook, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

DST has an undisclosed stake of its own in Facebook which reports last year put at 10 percent of total holdings. Read the rest of this entry »

World Bank to Invest US$165 Million for Renewable Energy

Dec. 13 – The Russian Renewable Energy Program, an experimental program by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, the Global Environment Facility and the Russian Energy Agency, will work together to develop a regulatory framework to assist renewable energy projects, expand access to financing, and directly inject funds into private projects.

“This is the first project of its kind, and it is no coincidence that we are choosing to launch it in Russia. Russia has huge renewable potential,” Snezana Stoiljkovic, IFC’s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said at a news conference in Moscow in Thursday. Read the rest of this entry »

E-Commerce Market to Grow in Russia

Nov. 4 – Russians will spend US$19.5 billion online this year, according to research of the market’s value released by Google Russia and Citibank on Tuesday.

Spending by online shoppers will grow to US$26 billion in 2012 from US$20 billion anticipated this year, the study found. Read the rest of this entry »

Lotte Group to Open Cinemas in Russia’s Far East

Oct. 20 – South Korean–Japanese conglomerate Lotte Group is entering Russia’s Far East, Russian weekly Kommersant-Khabarovsk reports.

Lotte Cinema, a division of Lotte Group’s entertainment business, will open six multiplex theaters totaling 30 screens in the Russian Far East major cities of Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk by the end of 2013. Total investment in the project will be US$30 million, Son Kwang-ik, Lotte Cinemas CEO announced. Read the rest of this entry »

Number of Internet Users Increasing in Russia

Aug. 17 – More than 43 million people in Russia log onto the internet monthly and, according to a survey conducted by National Network Domain Coordination Centre (NNDCC), “almost half the users will not refuse internet even if they don’t have enough money for food or clothes.”

The number of weekly internet users is Russia was estimated at 39.2 million people while the number of daily users totaled 29.4 million. Only 9 percent are using the internet less than once a week when 68 percent use it daily. In 2009, the number of daily users in Russia was 59 percent. Read the rest of this entry »

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