Sega and Nintendo are teaming up again for a new Mario & Sonic game.

This time the pair of rivals are heading to Russia for the Sochi Winter Olympics. It will have skiing, snowboarding, figure skating, and more.

Sega and Nintendo aren’t talking release details yet. Since this is an officially licensed product of the Olympics, expect it out sometime before the start of the 2014 Winter Games on Feb. 7.

This is the fourth game in the Mario & Sonic franchise. Previously, the plumber and rodent competed in Beijing, London, and Vancouver.

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The Dumasoft application, released by the State Duma’s executive office to streamline the work of the deputies, can only be downloaded to iPhones or iPads, with no Android version available for mobile device users. A few deputies wrote a request addressed to Speaker Sergei Naryshkin, asking him to deal with this inconvenience.

“Dumasoft does not support the Android operating system, while not all deputies are willing to buy iPhones and iPads,” a co-author of the request told Izvestia.

The new software was deployed in the fall of 2012, after Naryshkin had personally insisted that deputies needed to have the ability to work anywhere an Internet connection was available. The Dumasoft application allows deputies to view documents and correspondence, alter bills and comment on their colleagues’ proposals.

Yury Shuvalov, deputy head of the State Duma executive office, confirmed that the administration of the lower chamber was fully aware of the problem and looking for ways to solve it.

“We will certainly issue apps for other operating systems. I think this could be expected before the end of the year,” said Shuvalov.

According to Nikita Kislitsin, editor-in-chief of Hacker magazine, Apple devices are traditionally the choice of the well-to-do. Thus, it is no surprise that the State Duma executive office did not expect any opposition to the gadgets from the Duma deputies, whose average annual income hovers around 2 million rubles ($63,100) per person.

In addition, the State Duma thought that it could go easy on software developers in this case, an expert in Internet technologies, Ilya Knopov, added.

“Apple has just one platform for which new apps can be developed,” said Knopov. “It’s more complicated in the case of Android, so the development would cost more.”

photo credit: jurvetson via photopin cc

This article from Russian daily Izvestia was first published in English in Russia Beyond The Headlines and East-West Digital News.

Tencent Weibo has over 540 million registered accounts; VK.com has over 200 million registered accounts.

“Adding Tencent Weibo and VK.com to our lineup lets our users expand their reach around the world,” Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite, said in a statement. “Social has no boundaries. In fact, HootSuite has users in nearly every country worldwide, and is available in 15 languages and counting.”

HootSuite, which recently unveiled swanky new digs in Vancouver, Canada, is already integrated with other regional social networks such as Sina Weibo and Renren in China, Orkut, which maintains a foothold in Brazil, Viadeo, and Xing. And today, the company announced a new language: Russian.

Major brands that use Tencent Weibo include the NBA, Coca Cola, Pepsi, and Red Bull, and HootSuite says 79 of the Fortune 100 are its clients. The company grew sales to enterprise clients under $10 billion 272 percent and enterprises over $10 billion 900 percent in the first quarter of 2013, as new VP of marketing, Dee Anna McPherson — formerly of Yammer, helps accelerate its deployment into and within corporations.

The company’s Tencent Weibo integration includes such new features as posting and scheduling updates, viewing and leaving comments on posts, searching and filtering content, and using multiple profiles. For VK.com, HootSuite supports posting status updates, viewing and posting comments, liking updates, and monitoring news and updates.

“With our newest app integrations, you can use HootSuite to connect with hundreds of millions of users on the biggest social networks in China and Russia,” Holmes said.

HootSuite recently surpassed the six million user mark.

photo credit: @Doug88888 via photopin cc

Russian President Vladimir Putin has just revealed a new, huge budget of 1.6 trillion rubles over the next seven years to keep Russia ahead of the pack (specifically, ahead of the U.S.) when it comes to space research and space flight.

The roughly $51.8 billion fund — far greater than funds available to any other country’s space program — will be used to continue development of the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a space port and launchpad on which construction first began in 2011.

Putin said in a public address today that he expects the cosmodrome to be fully functional by 2020, with launches of spacecraft by 2015 and launches of spacecraft with cosmonauts onboard by 2018. Unmanned launches will be a new priority for the country, Putin said, including deep-space exploration.

Not-so-coincidentally, these are areas where the U.S. excels. Our long-running Voyager mission is entering or has entered interstellar space after 35 years of continuous space flight, and the Mars Curiosity rover is one of the most interesting and inspiring unmanned missions in Earth’s history (if we do say so ourselves).

Russia’s current main launchpad is located in Kazakhstan, but the site’s $115 million-per-year lease terms have been a recent source of contention between Putin’s administration and Kazakh authorities.

The new cosmodrome is located in Russia’s far east; in fact, “Vostochny” means “eastern.” The site is expected to contain seven launch pads, hotels, barracks, and a surrounding town capable of sustaining 40,000 people. The town, Putin said today, will be named after Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and astronautic theorist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

Image credit: Matchbox cover from P. Pesavento collection

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Eduson.tv launched an online business education portal geared towards people in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries to help them improve their skill sets and earn a degree.

The company describes itself as “Coursera for business students.” Students have access to a number of courses and can take them at their convenience. Lessons include videos and slides, case studies, reading materials, and tests, as well as real-life stories from business professionals. The course offerings include those led by business school professors, expert guest speakers, and free courses featuring existing content from people like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Ballmer, Tony Hsieh, and Tim Draper.

Founder and CEO Daria Zimina said in a statement that there are 60 million managers in BRIC countries who need business to advance their careers, and Eduson.tv will make high-quality content accessible to them. The most popular option is a full MBA, and individual course titles include “Introduction to Strategic HR Management, Understanding the Share Purchase Agreement” and “Raising money from VCs.

Eduson is in the process of expanding the class list and adding in new features, like a networking tools. The company raised $1 million from abel invests, including the founders of Groupon Russia, although the founders are “expecting to generate revenue since day one.” Although one-third of the courses are free, others charge enrollment fees and Eduson pays royalties to the lecturers. The goal is to add one new course a week. Read the press release.

Photo credit: Screenshot

A report in the New York Times this morning said regulators asked Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to take down “objectionable” material. Facebook and Twitter both cooperated by removing flagged posts relating to suicide and drug use, while YouTube filed a lawsuit claiming a video on how to make a fake wound with makeup was entertaining rather than harmful.

The law kicked into gear in November in an effort to control child pornography, instructions or propaganda for drug use, and material promoting suicide: three pervasive issues among Russia’s youth. It required Roskomnadzor, the state’s media monitoring agency, to maintain a list of banned content known as the “Single Register” and make sure nothing deemed dangerous is accessible online.

Russia does not want to flat out block popular, global sites like Facebook and YouTube, which would anger its citizens and reflect badly in the international community. So far, regulators have only taken down content that was legitimately harmful.

However, Internet censorship is a slippery and expensive slope. China is the flagship example of country aggressively regulating the Internet in order to quash dissension, but 40 countries around the world practice Internet filtering of some some form. India is also grappling with the fuzzy line of censorship following various violent outbreaks fueled by online activity.

The market for Russian Internet companies is growing fast. Internet penetration is high there, and it has strong base of technical talent. Russian startups are sealing large deals with venture capital firms to accommodate their growth. If Russia hopes to continue down the path towards a vibrant Internet economy, it must be careful to limit all restrictions to content that genuinely is harmful, rather than controversial or inflammatory.

As Google chairman Eric Schmidt wrote in a Times of India article, the choice is between an “open Internet that benefits all or a highly regulated one that inhibits innovation.”

Photo credit: saragoldsmith/Flickr

Hotel booking site Ostrovok has locked up $25 million to become the top Internet travel company in the Russian-speaking world.

Ostrovok is a straightforward hotel search engine. Users enter in their search destination, dates of travel, and number of people. The system brings up relevant results, which can be filtered by price, rating, location, and features like Internet, free breakfast, and parking. The database contains more than 135,000 hotels in 200 countries around the world.

Over the past year and a half, Ostrovosk has signed direct agreements with nearly 5,000 hotels in the Russian-speaking world and claims to be the leading online hotel network in this region. With $25 million, the plan is to sign over 25,000 new hotels, continue developing new products, and attract as many users as possible from the 300 million people in the Russian-speaking world.

“The persistence, commitment, and strategic vision of the team have allowed them to create a successfully developing company,” said well-known investor Yuri Milner, who participated in this round.

Online travel is a hot space in Russia. Some of the biggest deals to emerge from this market involve flight and hotel booking, including Oktogo.ru which recently raised $11 million and was named one of the 50 most innovative companies in the world by Fast Company, and Onetwotrip which stowed away $16 million last October.

This second round of financing makes Ostrovok, which means ‘island,’ the “best-capitalized online travel company in Russia.” General Catalyst Partners led the round, with participation from Frontier Ventures, Accel Partners, Expedia CEO Eric Blachford, Shervin Pishevar, and others. This prestigious lineup of investors were attracted to the potential in the fast-growing Russian market, as well as the site’s traction and team.

As Dave McClure put it, during a conference in Moscow last year, “The market looks pretty fucking good in Russia for the next 10 years. So the future is fucking bright! Time to buy sunglasses!” Russians can wear those same sunglasses on the trips they book through Ostrovok.

Photo Credit: jronaldlee/Flickr 

Christened Genezis Capital, the fund actually launched and made its first investment in late 2012 – but the official announcement was delayed to take advantage of the most suitable moment for it, Zhurba said in an exchange with East-West Digital News.

Genezis was put together by a group of more than 30 limited partners, representing investment banking, PE funds, large-scale multinationals and just “wealthy people.”

The amount of the fund – which is still open to new LPs – has not been disclosed. But Genezis sources have stated that it has raised enough money to invest in three to five seed or early-stage companies every year, with each receiving from $25,000 to $1 million, and in two more mature startups for as much $20 million apiece – and this for at least two years running.

IT projects are expected to account for up to 70% of the fund’s investments, with the rest allotted to beefing up players in biotech, clean tech, energy saving, alternative energy and robotics.

A global focus

In Russia, Genezis works as an extension of TexDrive, managing the accelerator’s assets. Its playing field has been rather narrow, with no more than 70 investment-grade startups in the country, the fund has estimated.

But Genezis – which was registered in an as-yet unspecified foreign country – seeks investment opportunities across markets as diverse as the U.S., Europe, Russia and Asia. “We consider Russian and foreign startups under identical criteria,” Zhurba told EWDN.

The ‘invest abroad’ trend among Russian funds started in 2009, when Yuri Milner’s Digital Sky Technologies invested in Facebook. Since then, a bevy of Moscow-based VCs, including Bright Capital, Phenomen Ventures, Runa Capital and Ru-Net, have been chasing opportunities around the world, while DST’s cash has fueled Airbnb, Alibaba, Spotify, Twitter and several other top Internet companies.

Genezis Capital’s first investment – more than $10 million – went to an undisclosed company operating in the U.S. and Western European markets. Its Russian portfolio includes B-152, an Internet service that helps businesses comply with the demanding requirements of Russia’s personal data legislation; Martmania, a Novosibirsk, Siberia-based online retailer; and Fleecs, a startup developing a payment solution for fuel stations.

Photo Credit: John Leach/Flickr

Oktogo.ru (as in “okay to go”) is a site you may never have heard of, let alone used. But that’s because you’re not Russian, dummy.

The Russian travel site — or rather, the startup that runs it — was named one of the 50 most innovative companies in the world last month by Fast Company. And innovation like that tends to attract a fair amount of investment.

Today, Oktogo is announcing it’s raised $11 million from VTB Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners, Ventech, and Victor Sazhin Group. The investment is conveniently timed to generate some buzz for the company just as many folks are starting to plan ahead for their summer vacations.

In an emailed statement, the startup told us the Russian online travel market will exceed $10 billion in 2013, up more than 40 percent from 2012. And with a million monthly uniques and a huge (PR folks said “the largest”) database of Russian hotels, as well as listings in popular spots like Rome and Prague, it says it’s poised to capture quite a bit of that market.

This funding is the startup’s third round. To date, the St. Petersburg-based company has pulled in $26 million in venture capital.

Image credit ruigsantos/Shutterstock

Who’s committing these crimes?

Most of them are between 29 and 49 years old, and three-quarters are male. They work in organized groups, half of which have six or more members. And they live all over the world, but especially in Asia, notably China and Indonesia.

That’s according to online payments company Jumio – one of the companies that Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin has invested in. Jumio has put together an infographic highlighting who is attacking companies and people.

To do what they do, cyber criminals need access to the interwebs. That means Internet service providers and website hosting providers are critical, and most of the ones criminals work through are based in Russia and China.

This won’t make victims of identify theft, hacking, or online fraud feel any better, but only 0.0019 percent of cybercrimes in the U.S. in 2010 were tried in court and saw the hackers convicted.

Here’s all the data, in visual form:

Image credits: Jumio

Exactly one year ago, four members of the Russian female punk band Pussy Riot charged the gilded altar of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Outfitted in bright-colored balaclavas and tights, they pumped their fists in the air and shouted, “Saint Mary! Virgin! Drive Putin away!”

Months later, three of the women were prosecuted at a trial, in which they were denied permission to call witnesses and ask questions. All were found guilty, and two are still serving terms of hard labor at prison camps.

This episode set off a wave of global outrage, with even the sober-minded German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaking out on behalf of the rockers. Many saw it as another depressing, even outrageous, confirmation of how repressive and intolerant Vladimir Putin’s regime has become.

The Pussy Riot trial’s true importance, however, transcends Russia’s struggles over free speech and the right to protest. It symbolizes the greatest single obstacle to economic growth in Russia: the government’s crushing of the innovative spirit that is the essential prerequisite to entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurs thrive on ideas. They turn dreams and notions into real life, real jobs, and real social progress. They render value.

Steve Jobs is the most iconic example. From the first personal computer to the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, he propelled technology, and thereby humanity, forward through imagination. “This wasn’t about processor speed or memory,” Jobs once said about building Apple. “It was about creativity.” And Apple inspired millions across the world, from Brazil to China, who are launching startups at record pace.

More than most emerging markets, Russia boasts the energy, native talent, capital, mentors,and networks necessary to join and even help lead this economic revolution. Its engineers and technical minds are world class, producing companies such search engine Yandex, cloud computing company Parallels, cyber security giant Kaspersky Lab, and even contributing to organizational software giant Evernote. Later this month the Kremlin-backed Yota Devices will release the world’s first dual-faced smartphone.

The Pussy Riot episode, however, points to why the majority of Russian entrepreneurs face breakdowns rather than breakthroughs.

Entrepreneurs depend on an environment that encourages — or at least permits — experimentation and rebellion against established paradigms. Russia’s leader, determined to suppress opposition and convinced that oil and gas revenues will sustain the country’s economy forever, has been unable or unwilling to grasp this truth.

It could be stated starkly: no Pussy Riot, no Steve Jobs.

Entrepreneurs in Russia find their government not only unhelpful, but also actively hostile. Russia’s security and law enforcement, the siloviki, have earned a reputation less for protecting and more for extorting bribes and using the courts to incarcerate those deemed threatening the regime. Private sector patrons connected to the Kremlin use the government to intimidate competitors.

Business Solidarity, a local advocacy organization that campaigns for entrepreneurial protections and rights, estimates that one in six Russian entrepreneurs is in jail. The BBC reported that Russia has imprisoned nearly 3 million entrepreneurs over the past 10 years. Almost no other social group has been persecuted on such a large scale. Subjected to a malicious bureaucracy enveloped in graft and nepotism, most Russian entrepreneurs leave. Those that stay register their companies and raise capital offshore.

In 2010, then-president Dmitri Medvedev announced plans to build Skolkovo, a multi-billion-dollar high-tech center modeled after Silicon Valley, in a suburb outside Moscow.  Work is well advanced.  According to the Skolkovo Foundation the government has spent nearly $4 billion on a 1,000-acre campus dotted with sleek modern buildings, research labs, and schools–including one affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kaita Gaika, a deputy director at the Skolkovo Foundation, told me that the center’s purpose is to “induce more people to become entrepreneurs and help existing startups skip the dead valley of projects (failure) … Skolkovo entrepreneurs have better protections.” Perhaps the only protections.

Russians who have been victims of their government’s corrupt heavy hand, however, are wary.

“The siloviki, Russian police, will take your property away from you,” one told me during a visit to Moscow in November. “The judge always supports the siloviki. When somebody goes before a judge, it is 99 percent clear that he will be found guilty and sentenced to years in jail. It is a normal situation.”

“You should be fearless to be an entrepreneur anywhere,” Russian angel investor Arkady Moreynis told me when I visited him at the Moscow satellite of startup incubator Plug and Play. “If you’re an entrepreneur you have to live with what you have.”

What happens, however, if you live in a system that is, as Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova pointed out at the end of her band’s trial, “dominated by rigidity, closedness, and caste?”

You don’t produce the iPad, as one Russian entrepreneur told me.

“It is not possible for us to have innovation.”

Photo credit: Flickr/Grüne Bundestagsfraktion

You may have heard about the crazy meteor that shattered windows with its sonic boom this morning. Well, an asteroid’s passing Earth now, and NASA is livestreaming its progress.

The asteroid, known as 2012 DA14, is set to fly very close to Earth — it will come within 17,200 miles of us today. Experts say that while the asteroid will not hit Earth, it’s one of the first asteroids this big to come this close to our planet. It is a full 150 feet wide, about the size of a football field, as NASA notes.

The asteroid is set to fly by at its closest at 2:24 p.m. Eastern time.

Its arrival, however, was overshadowed this morning when a meteor flew through Earth’s atmosphere, breaking the sound barrier and causing a lot of commotion in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. It created a massive sonic boom that sent glass from windows flying and set off car alarms. Reuters is reporting that more than 500 people sought medical help due to the glass.

The two space rocks, however, seem to be unconnected. As Slate notes, DA14 is coming from south to north, where the Russian meteor came from another direction, many hours before DA14 is expected to hit.

Thumbnail image via NASA

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Investor hit with accounting misconduct launches $1B fund on the same day

Despite the controversy surrounding former company Autonomy, Mike Lynch is pressing ahead with plans for his venture fund called “Invoke.” He is attempting to raise $1 billion to help small companies grow by acquiring bigger businesses. The fund has already invested security software company Featurespace, and is specifically looking to bankroll British research-led companies. Read more on VentureBeat.

Sailthru backed by strong winds from Benchmark

Sailthru announced today that it has raised $19 million led by Benchmark Capital. Sailthru’s flagship product is the Smart Data platform. Smart Data collects data about users and generates specific profiles for each individual. Marketers can use this information to personalize communication through targeted emails, onsite and in-app recommendations, and text messages. The financing will support the company’s growth as it expands its roster of Fortune 500 clients. In addition to Benchmark, RRE, DFJ Gotham, and AOL Ventures contributed to this round. Read more on VentureBeat.

Cars.com invests in RepairPal to try to keep mechanics honest

RepairPal.com, which simplifies the process of car maintenance, has received $13 million in funding fuel to expand its network. Cars.com and Castrol innoVentures led this round and will support RepairPal with expertise and strategic resources as well as financing. RepairPal.com collects data about the cost and time requirements for common car services and links consumers to qualified, trusted mechanics nearby. It will use the second round of financing to expand into additional markets. Read more on VentureBeat.

KnexxLocal closes seed round to expand word-of-mouth marketing

Marketing startup KnexxLocal launched Instamonial today and announced that it recently closed $1.1 million in seed funding. Instamonial is an app that lets local business communicate with customers through photos to receive feedback. Images can then be distributed across social media networks. KnexxLocal is based on Toronto. This round was led by Round 13 Capital, Imperial Capital Group, and angels.

Black Ocean helps float Russian babies

Russian children’s education startup BimBasket has received a $500K investment from Black Ocean. BimBasket offers a monthly subscription service that delivers kits for children aged 0 to 3. Black Ocean is a digital media company that also has an incubator program, seed fund, and “strategic holding division.” It found BimBasket through Rusbase, a platform to connect Russian startups with venture capitalists.

Gruzobzor is not a monster, its a cloud service

The scary  name of this startup does not deter investors. Runa Capital has invested an undisclosed amount in Gruzobzor.ru, which has built a cloud-based communication serve for the transportation industry, specifically to facilitate intact between haulers and customers. This brings the total funding raised to $1 million and will be used to expand Gruzobzor into international markets, beyond the CIS and Eastern Europe.

E-commerce startups keeps on churning in Latin America 

LINIO, a Colombian startup that sells consumer electronics, is receiving an “8-digit Euro sum” from German retailer company the Tengelmann Group. LINIO is owned by a German holding company and has already received investments from AB Kinnevik, JP Morgan, and Summit Partners. LINIO operates in MExico, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela and will use the financing to increase its hold on the Latin American e-commerce market.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

While smartphone makers like Apple and Samsung are focusing their efforts on the U.S. and, increasingly, China, there are a few more countries that will soon demand their attention.

So says the latest data from Nielsen, which shows that Russia, Brazil, and India are quickly becoming the next battlegrounds for the smartphone makers of the world.

In India, for example, where the population is 1.2 billion, only 10 percent of the 3,900 people polled said they own smartphones. Things look roughly the same in Russia, where roughly half of those polled said they were still rocking touch screen-less devices.

Things are a bit more confusing in Brazil, a country that can’t seem to figure out what kind of phone it prefers. Thirty-six percent of phone owners there are running smartphones, while 44 percent use feature phones. (It also has a lot of owners of so-called “multimedia phones,” which feature touchscreens and QWERTY keyboards but not bona fide operating systems.)

The message to smartphone makers is clear: Start going after these countries before your competitors get there first.

Photo: McKay Savage/

Quantum Wave Fund (QWave) has pooled $30 million to create the first fund dedicated to companies developing quantum technologies. Quantum mechanics is futuristic stuff. It is a branch  of physics that studies matter and energy at the microscopic scale (to put it simply). Aside from stretching the limits of reasoning and consciousness and raising questions about the nature of the universe, quantum physics potentially has commercial applications.

QWave will invest in companies that are applying quantum materials and technologies  to solve real-world problems. Serge Haroche and David Wineland won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on quantum computing, which could dramatically up the processing capabilities of computers.

So far, QWave has invested in startups tackling quantum encryption security, new materials, and quantum devices. According to a release, the potential results of research in this area are “safe data transmission networks, new materials with superior properties, optical sub-micron transistors, high-frequency optical electronics, new systems for ultrasensitive imaging of the brain, and compact and accurate clocks for navigation systems.”

Serguei Beloussov is one of the partners of the Quantum Wave Fund, as well as at the venture firm Runa Capital. He said in a statement that the venture community stopped investing in “sophisticated capital intensive projects” and shifted to focus on software. While there was intensive research going on at universities and scientific centers, many of the scientists had no idea how to turn their work into a business. However, anticipation runs high for the impact quantum computing could potentially have on the technology industry, and QWave strobes to be one of the “pioneers to drive this opportunity.”

QWave is headquartered in Boston with outposts in New York and Moscow and is seeking to ultimately close the fund at $100 million. Read the press release. 

Apple is finally debuting its popular iTunes media store/application across most of Asia and other regions, it announced today.

The iTunes store will now be available to customers in Russia, India, Turkey, South Africa, and 52 other countries. Those customers will gain access to the bulk of music from major record labels as well as offer a selection of local music artists from their own countries’ or regions. Apple states that there will be over 20 million songs available for purchase in these new international iTunes stores.

That means these countries will also finally have access to Apple’s iTunes Match service, which allows you to back up your entire library within the cloud, and download or stream your music from any Apple device. And of course, users in these countries will also gain access to the iTunes App Store.

Movies are a different story, as only certain countries will be able to purchase films from the major studios, including Russia, Turkey, India, Indonesia and others.

Apple just rolled out a new version of iTunes (version 11), which offers significant upgrades to the media player, store, and overall user interface. And apparently the new version was good enough to expand into these other countries.

Mikhail Vinchel, a Russian entrepreneur who made his fortune with Mail.ru, has invested $75 million in IMI.VC, the venture firm started by Russian entrepreneur Igor Matsanyuk. IMI.VC focuses its investments on mobile applications. It was founded in 2011 after Matsanyuk sold his stake in gaming company Astrum Online and shifted into venture capitalism. Vinchel is joining the board of directors, along with Gregory Finger who serves on the boards of both Astrum Online an Mail.ru. IMI.VC portfolio companies include Game Insight, Farminers Startup Academy, and WeHeartPics.

Russian travel site Onetwotrip is stowing away another $16 million in investment. OneTwoTrip is an online airline ticket booking site where users can search for flights, see offers, look at ratings, and select the flight that is right for them. It is like a Russian version of sites like Kayak, Orbitz, or Expedia.

According to the tip from Russian tech blog Quintura, this round of funding came from Atomico, a venture capital firm started by a founder of Skype. It is an international firm with a majority of its portfolio companies residing in Europe. Onetwotrip just raised $9 million from Russian firm Phenomenon Ventures in September.

Travel is a hot space for Russian startups, with the largest online market in Europe and a travel market that is taking off. This $16 million is one of the biggest investments in a Russian internet startup this year.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is freaked out, and for good reason. He advised America today that the country is in danger of a cyber attack that could end in civilian death.

According to the New York Times, Panetta aired his concern during a speech in New York City saying we may experience a “cyber-Pearl Harbor that would cause physical destruction and the loss of life, an attack that would paralyze and shock the nation and create a profound new sense of vulnerability.”

Specifically, he referenced the growing potential for hacks on critical infrastructure, energy grids, and other smart devices. He mentioned derailing trains and contaminating water supplies. There’s evidence to support his concerns, starting with the Stuxnet attacks in Iran in 2010. Stuxnet infected the fueling systems of Iran’s nuclear power plants, causing them to malfunction. The malware attacked “SCADA” systems used to control infrastructure used in all different kinds of businesses including oil facilities to prisons. Indeed, researchers already believe the prison doors to maximum security prisons could be opened due to a similar attack.

Other than to warn the American public about it’s future doom, Panetta was also there to pull support for a cybersecurity bill. Panetta wants a new kind of communication between private businesses and the government sector, so that law enforcement can find out about and assess new viruses quickly.

“Attackers only need to find one weak point in any target, and every major target that Secretary Panetta is concerned about has a truly massive attack surface to check. The need for automation has gone from high to extreme – every critical organization must automate their assessment of whether their attack posture is weak,” said RedSeal Networks chief technology officer Dr. Mike Lloyd in an email to VentureBeat. “However, the Federal Government cannot defend all the private infrastructure we depend on – the banks, the power companies, the transportation infrastructure. These companies have to appreciate the threat to their shareholders and the general public, and this is why Secretary Panetta is making clear how serious the situation is.”

The U.S., according to Panetta, should be watching countries such as Russia, China, and Iran as well. This week the United States Congress Intelligence Committee issued its own warning against Chinese telecommunications vendors Huawei and ZTE stating that they couldn’t be trusted to be out of the influence of the Chinese government. The committee also urged any U.S. companies working with the two should find new partners.

Leon Panetta image via Official U.S. Navy Imagery/Flickr

At the end of September a not-so-usual venture gathering occurred in Digital October in Moscow. Just steps away from the Kremlin walls in the 35,000 square-foot space of the former chocolate factory, Geeks on a Plane, the international jet-setting startup, investment and tech tour with the best name on the planet, networked, bantered, and befriended the great and the good in the new Russian tech scene.

Masterminded by McClure, founder and “Sith Lord” of accelerator 500 Startups, and co-organizer of the most imaginative events in the Valley (Smash Summit and UnSexy), Geeks on a Plane takes his ethos on the road (or air), taking investors and executives on a global tour, learning about burgeoning technology markets. Described as having “a sole mission of uniting geeks and exploring cross-border opportunities” GoaP has already touched down in Latin America, Hawaii, and Berlin this year, with next stops planned for New Zealand and the Middle East.

“The market looks pretty fucking good in Russia for the next 10 years”

“Investors definitely should go for the Russian market” said Marvin Liao, CMO of Symbio and one of the Geek-on-a-Plane Eastern Europe participants. And Marvin should know – his former role was as commercial director of EMEA Markets for Yahoo.

“Russia is a big market with lots of talents. Modernization may be not great here but hopefully it’s getting better,” said McClure. He went on to say that the winning combination of Russian engineers and passionate attitude to business are sufficient reasons to compel any Silicon Valley company to invest in local startups.

“Right now, there’s much more engineering talent than design or product management talent but you’ve got one generation of entrepreneurs which have been successful in Russia. Hopefully they are starting to teach and invest in the next generation. The market looks pretty fucking good in Russia for the next 10 years. So the future is fucking bright! Time to buy sunglasses!”

Digital October – the hub of the new Russian digital scene

It took more than three years for GoaP to notice Moscow. This year it was, tellingly, the first stop in the Eastern European itinerary, with the team spending four days in Moscow meeting startups, geeks, and investors and learning about the trends in Internet, mobile, and other tech platforms. And drinking, of course, as McClure admitted.

Established in 2010, Digital October is indicative of the activity around the new Moscow tech scene and has become the focal point of its activities. Aimed at bringing together VCs, leading private investors, government, and private institutions, its activities range from TechCrunch and DLD’s Russian presences, from receptions with Cisco chief futurist Dave Evans and interactive lectures, to hosting the Venture talk-show on Moscow Business FM radio.

Landing Page itself saw the movers and shakers in this Moscow scene represented – travel leaders OktoGo, gaming giants Zeptolab (responsible for Cut the Rope), as well as key digital media players and investors such as Foresight Ventures, Addventure, Russian Venture Company, Glavstart and Yandex.Factory.

This story originally appeared on VentureVillage, VentureBeat’s Europe-based syndication partner.

Well, at least in the business sense.

Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh has been chosen as GQ Russia’s Businessman of the Year … and Man of the Year. Volozh will adorn the coveted GQ cover which has previously featured supermodel Natalia Vodianova, actor Tom Cruise, and male heartthrob Ryan Gosling.

They do say that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Yandex is the “Russian Google” and has seen a 24 percent gain in its stock price this year. Its search market share in Russia is close to Google’s in the U.S., at 60 percent, which the company credits to its deep understanding of Russian language, culture, and web users.

Building on its success, Yandex is planning to come out with its own web browser in late 2012, and it’s reportedly working with Apple on iOS6 maps — and will potentially replace Google as the default search engine in mobile Safari.

A little more star power courtesy GQ Russian certain can’t hurt.

Image credit: GQ Russia

Hat tip: Quintura

OneTwoTrip is an online airline ticket booking site where users can search for flights, see offers, look at ratings, and select the flight that is right for them. It is like a Russian version of sites like Kayak, Orbitz, or Expedia.

OneTwoTrip launched in 2011 and with this funding plans to add additional services like hotel booking and car rentals. Phenomen Ventures is a Russian venture capital firm that focuses its investments on high technology and Internet startups.

Russia’s an exciting market in terms of growth potential, but it can also seem like a badlands for e-commerce to the uninitiated. In this guest opinion piece, Fast Lane Ventures CEO Marina Treshchova (below right) talks us through some common misperceptions foreign investors harbor about Russia and shares five tips for success.

At the beginning of 2012, Russia became the largest online market in Europe, surpassing Germany in the total number of users online. This growth will continue, and we estimate that by 2015 this number will reach nearly 90 million people. This is an exciting trend for those interested in developing an online business in Russia, especially for international players who are thinking about entering this lucrative but still rather unchartered market for many.

While having regular meetings with potential partners, I am often asked how difficult it is to build a business in Russia. Of course, as an experienced entrepreneurial company ourselves, we fully understand all assumptions and prejudices that hold back foreign investors from going for Russia. As the old adage goes, “perception is the truth as we know it” – but we’re proving business in Russia can be workable, profitable, and rewarding as well.

1. Russian consumers are easier to excite than those in the US

We are confident that the Russian Internet industry is the most exciting place to be operating in at the moment. It is one of the few industries on a global scale where the growth is also reflective of the level of consumer spending in the sector.

In European markets and in the US, where consumerism is already well-established, consumer behavior is at a more mature stage. It is becoming more and more difficult to excite people with the introduction of new online products or services, because they have already experienced almost everything … several times over. Consumers in these more mature markets do not tend to increase the amount of money they spend on online purchasesm and traditionally their choice is mostly price-driven, favouring the less expensive products or services.

In contrast, online consumer behaviour in Russia has changed dramatically. For example, the e-commerce market in Russia was among the top performing in the world and has been growing by at least 25 percent for the past few years, reaching the turnover of $10.5 billion in 2011.

Russia is now rapidly accelerating its adoption of global online trends. When compared to the European and US Internet sectors, Russia is five and 10 years behind these markets respectively in terms of development. The major players across Russian Internet are now working to speed up Runet’s growth in order to seize on the opportunities available. And as a result, Russia’s Internet segment and the companies working in this area are some of the most dynamic.

However, the stark reality is that only a handful of small to medium businesses in the area have the true capability to transform into leading businesses in the Internet industry.

2. Delivering orders can be a challenge

In order to provide online retail customers with an excellent service and to build a very memorable – and of course, positive – consumer experience, orders need to be delivered in a very timely manner. Whilst this might seem like a very basic principle, there are still many smaller players who take online orders from Internet users knowing they will not be able to deliver the purchase within the next few days. Russia is a vast country, and building efficient logistics for an e-commerce business is one of the main challenges. An efficient supply chain is not only crucial for businesses profitability, but for its survival as well.

3. Seed funding is easy, bigger rounds are not

This factor is closely connected with another market characteristic: execution (or lack of execution). Many online companies are being launched and successfully manage to attract seed investments but cannot display enough early growth to attract the critical next rounds of funding. They often lack the required level of professionalism, long-term vision, and the market knowledge that will allow them to create a customer experience that will be both user-friendly and trustworthy. That’s why finding the right partner within the Russian market is absolutely crucial for ensuring required and timely return on investments.

4. Russia’s regions are where most market potential lies

Another common perception of the market that often worries investors when evaluating an entry strategy is the apparent lack of Internet literacy (or usage) in the country. It is a common misconception that the majority of growth in Internet users is accumulating only in Moscow and St Petersburg. This assumption is far removed from the reality, as it is actually the regions that are demonstrating the most dynamic growth rates, and thus most of the market potential is concentrated there. At the moment, there are 12 million people involved in e-commerce across Russia, excluding the two larger cities.

5. Meet the locals and make them partners

Many companies fail to advance in the market because they simply do not take into consideration a variety of local factors that are obvious to someone who has been operating in Russian e-commerce for many years. It is for this reason companies and entrepreneurs should be looking for knowledgeable partners prior to entering the market.

Image credit: St Basil’s Cathedral – Flickr user Kwong Yee Cheng; regional Russia – Flickr user photoroobit

This story originally appeared in VentureVillage, VentureBeat’s Europe-based syndication partner.

According to an insider source speaking to Russian newspaper Kommersant, the deal could be worth between $40 million and $80 million, which would make it one of the largest investments so far in a fashion e-commerce company in Russia.

Lamoda, founded one-and-a-half years ago by Dominik Picker, Florian Jansen, Burkhard Binder and Niels Tonsen, now employs 800 people and claims about five million unique users.

It’s just one of about 100 companies built by Berlin-headquartered Rocket Internet, best-known for fast execution and a track record of cloning promising U.S. businesses in new markets. The Samwer brothers – Oliver, Marc and Alexander – founded Rocket in 2007.

Lessons from “blitzkrieg” email – Lamoda

TechCrunch reports the deal was made via a German holding company and reminds us of Oliver Samwer’s infamous “blitzkrieg” email apparently sent to the founders of the Rocket companies in October 2011. In that email, Samwer referenced mistakes made by the team in Russia, including with business reporting. Because of these mistakes, the unnamed founders had lost 50 percent of their equity and had gone without salary for six months, according to Samwer’s email.

While Samwer’s email never mentions “Lamoda” by name, the email was most likely addressing Lamoda’s founders because Rocket’s only other listed portfolio companies in Russia are international shopping club Westwing and Mebelrama, an online homewear shop founded in 2011 with a Facebook page only set up in November 2011.

Rocket Internet – become number one or shut shop?

Attracting JP Morgan investment alongside Zalando and Dafiti would appear to show a turnaround. While Zalando is still posting losses (despite €510m turnover in 2011), it’s considered the flagship within Rocket Internet’s online empire, with no trouble attracting investment from Rocket Internet regulars Holtzbrinck Ventures, Tengelmann Ventures and AB Kinnevik as well as Yuri Milner’s DST Global.

Lamoda co-founder Niels Tonsen said in a statement the new JP Morgan funds would be used to expand the company’s portfolio, currently sitting at 500,000 products from 700 mainstream and international brands, and its presence in countries outside Russia.

“The investment underlines our leading position in one of the world’s fastest growing markets,” he said. “It will allow us to further expand our product and brand portfolio as well as our presence in other emerging markets such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Belarus. We will continue to streamline our fulfillment and delivery processes and to enhance the online shopping experience for our customers.”

Rocket Internet is currently in the middle of a global portfolio shake-up, shutting down operations in Turkey after hiring hundreds over the course of about one year, and collapsing retailer Mizado into sister brand Namshi in the United Arab Emirates.

Rocket also recently agreed to sell 50 percent of its Latin American and African holding companies to telco group Millicom for €340 million, including the option for Millicom to acquire the rest at fair market value by 2016.

A version of this article was original published in VentureVillage, a VentureBeat Berlin-based content partner.

[ updated July 20 with a confirmation from a competitor - see bottom for more details ]

Ahh, LinkedIn we love you.

People can never seem to wait with their profile updates until the public announcement is out. At least, that seems to be the case with Andrew Verbitsky, a former Accenture consultant, venture capitalist, and now Managing Director Russia & CIS for Kayak:

Yes, this Kayak.

The same Kayak that just priced its initial public offering at $23-25 per share, seeking to raise about $100 million. I just checked the company’s S1 filing for going public, and the word “Russia” makes not one single appearance.

Much of the S1 is pure boilerplate, probably including a fairly generic statement about expansion. However, if Kayak is indeed expanding to Russia, this is where the tip-off in the S1 filing would be:

We may also use a portion of the proceeds to expand our current business through acquisitions or investments in other strategic businesses, products or technologies.

In addition, as Quintura noticed, kayak.ru is now forwarding to kayak.com. Previously, the .ru domain had belonged to an actual kayaking club.

An expansion to Russia makes a lot of sense for Kayak, given that the Russian ecommerce market is booming — growing to $40-60 billion by 2020, and is the largest online market in Europe, with 70 million Internet users. Coincidentally, travel industry research firm PhoCusWright (!) just reported that online booking for travel in Eastern Europe and Russia is growing quickly: faster than 25 percent annually for the next two years.

VentureBeat has contacted Kayak PR for details and we will update as they come in.

Verbitsky, meanwhile, has added just one line to the Experience section of his LinkedIn profile that mentions his current job:

“Having great time swimming against the tide.”

[ update - July 20 ]

I received an email from Max Kraynov, who is the Managing Director of JetRadar (aviasales.ru in Russia).

I’ve just read your “Travel deals site Kayak entering Russia just prior to IPO?” article and want to offer a couple of insights if you’re interested.

First of all, I’m the CEO of aviasales.ru (AKA JetRadar in other markets), the key competitor of Kayak, Momondo and Skyscanner. We’re the #1 in Russia, hence, as you can imagine, the topic is quite interesting to me.

Secondly, KAYAK started advertising for an MD position in Russia in Feb-Mar 12. They found Andrey Verbitsky in May. He’s ex-Fast Lane Ventures person, and FLV has a mixed reputation since their model is taking Western startups and adapting them to the Russian realities.

Thirdly, they considered regional acquisitions but chose not to do them. (Won’t tell who they were looking at out of courtesy to KAYAK).

Now the interesting part. So far they haven’t got any contracts with the Russian OTAs and airlines. The ITA software technology is pretty much useless outside the US, hence they would have to build something similar to what we’ve done in Russia. They estimated their time to market to be around 4-5 months, but in reality (unless they make a fast acquisition, and there’s no one for sale on the block) if they want to make a product and not just put a lipstick on a pig, this would take 8-12 months.

Nice effort, though.

Image credit: Nickolay Vinokurov/ShutterStock

As we reported earlier, the new legislation is a series of amendments to other bills that grant the Russian federal service for supervision of communications, IT, and mass media the power to remove websites from the Russian Internet 24 hours after notifying offending publishers.

While the bill’s language states that its focus on pornography, extremist websites, and sites promoting suicide, critics fear it will be used to stifle dissent. According to the Russian legal information society Rapsi, Alexander Morozov, the head of Moscow’s Center for Media Studies, is one of those who is worried.

“It is always argued that these laws are against extremism, child pornography, and so on, but this legislation will hit the opposition and freedom of political expression.”

Russian Wikipedia ran an SOPA-style blackout yesterday to no avail, and the Kremlin’s own human rights watchdog has complained.

Oddly, the bill has both broad political support, having been drafted by members of all four of Russia’s major political parties, and many opponents. It appears that the bill will be signed into law by President Valdimir Putin later this year, but opposition members of the Russian parliament said that the bill’s goal was to stifle dissent.

The broader danger to free speech is that by implementing the bill, the Russian government is giving itself a lever that it can now activate for an increasing range of reasons.

Image credit: Vladdito/ShutterStock

The bill, which is really a series of amendments to existing laws, was originally drafted in June, according to Ria Novosti, a Russian news agency, but will be presented to legislators this week, on July 6. If the amendments pass, Roskomnadzor, the Russian federal service for supervision of communications, IT, and mass media, will be in charge of the blacklist and will work through a non-profit organization to monitor compliance.

When a website is found to contain illegal content, the government agency will give the owner of the site 24 hours to remove it. Failing that removal, the site will be entered on the blacklist. In some cases, such as sites advocating violence, the courts may need to get involved.

Opposition has already arisen, comparing the Russian effort to China-style “great firewall” censorship.

As the Financial Times has reported, the country has already seen questionable cases of harassment and attempted censorship on .ru domains. Compromat.ru, which publishes stories on official corruption in Russia, was closed by a Moscow prosecutor, and moscow-post.ru, a news site, suffered a similar fate. Both websites subsequently relocated to .net or .com domains.

Even the Kremlin’s own human rights watchdog is complaining, saying that it is important to stop censorship on Russian language websites. And the Voice of Russia reported that Minister of Communications and Mass Media Nikolai Nikiforov does not “appreciate the bill in its current form.”

Regardless, the bill may be passed in first reading, says RAPSI, the Russian Legal Information Agency.

Image credit: ShutterStock

KupiVIP is the largest luxury shopping club in Russia, offering designer labels and brand-name merchandise for significant discounts. The site now has more than eight million registered users, who participate in regular flash sales. (“Kupi” means “sale” in Russian.)

In a statement, general director Oskar Hartmann said that the company was the first in Russia “to launch an online shopping club and were thrilled with our early success.”

Hartmann thinks that this is just the beginning: “We have only just started to exploit the enormous opportunity the Russian consumer market offers to international brands. With this new investment, we are delighted to get the support we need to build a world class e-commerce company.”

The company also runs ShopTime.ru, which offers an e-commerce platform for brands to market their goods in Russia. This is increasingly attractive for international brands, as Russia has become the largest internet market in Europe, and companies such as QuickSilver and Mexx have signed on.

The company plans to use the funds to expand, invest in distribution, and launch new websites.

Other players in this round included Acton Capital Partners, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, and existing investors Accel Partners and Balderton Capital.

Anton Oparin / Shutterstock.com

VentureBeat recently talked to Nginx co-founder Andre Alexeev about the company’s high-performance server software that is now powering over 25 percent of the world’s top websites.

Andrew Alexeev

“We’re like the man behind the curtain,” Alexeev says. “We power over 70 million sites overall — about 12 percent of the Internet, but still a lot of people have not heard of Nginx.”

Nginx, pronounced en-gin-ex,was recently chosen as one of the foundations of Netflix’s content delivery network, or CDN. CDNs help companies with massive data distribution needs serve clients all over the globe quickly and efficiently. Most companies choose a commercially available CDN, but at some size, it becomes more economical to build your own. That’s exactly what Netflix did — essentially following the YouTube model.

Serving content for Netflix is, obviously, not small potatoes. In June the company said it was serving nearly a billion hours of video each and every month. That translates into huge amounts of data, in some cases up to 32 percent of peak Internet bandwidth in North America alone. Not all of that is transferring immediately to Netflix’s own CDN; the company is taking a measured approach to the project. But the cost savings mean that it is the company’s preferred direction.

That’s just a fraction of what Nginx is doing.

The server technology powers the websites of some of the most well-known brands online. Think the busiest site on the planet: Facebook. And WordPress. Not to mention Hulu, Zappos, Zynga, Dropbox, and Yandex, the big Russian search engine. Why are all these giants of the web using Nginx?

“We’ve built Nginx to be much more efficient, much more scalable,” Aleexev told VentureBeat. “We’ve designed it to extract the most performance from hardware — it’s built to scale from 1,000 concurrent connections per server to 1,000,000 per server.”

The company is very young, exactly a year old today. But the Nginx open source software project has its roots in 2002. The server software was first released in 2004, and the core team has been iterating ever since. Nginx, the company, plans to make money the way many companies built around open source software do: consulting, services, implementation, strategy. And that’s pretty much what they did for Netflix.

“We helped them with the proof of concept and helped optimize the operating system they are using, which is FreeBSD,” Aleexev says. “We also optimized Nginx for the hardware.”

But Nginx also plans to offer commercial products, including extensions to the server software and a new product in the web acceleration space. To accomplish this, the company raised $3 million in venture capital last year from BV Capital, Runa Capital, and MSD. There’s still a long way to go to catch market leader Apache, currently running 64 percent of the world’s top servers. But Nginx’s focus is not just the most sites: it’s the busiest sites.

Server market share as of June – green line is Nginx

Image credit: ShutterStock

The Russian market is growing at a supersonic rate and provides excellent exit opportunites for investors in Russian online ventures to create a brand-new breed of Russian internet entrepreneur.

So who are the trailblazers to watch in this new web frontier? Yankov Sadchikov, Russian startup blogger at Quintura.com, talks us through the hottest Russian entrepreneurs to watch right now…

Oskar Hartmann, founder and CEO, KupiVIP.ru

After launching online shopping club KupiVIP.ru in fall 2008, the Russian-German Oskar Hartmann added an e-commerce platform for Russian retailers and launched online fashion store ShopTime.

In Russian online shopping, KupiVIP is growing bigger than almost as big as established brand OZON.ru by racking $200 million revenues last year. Correction 5/16/2012: Ozon notes that it generated over $300 million in revenue for 2011. In 2010, Hartmann partnered with the French businessman Pascal Clément to set up a Moscow-based internet business incubator, Fast Lane Ventures, which has already started eighteen internet businesses to date, of which two were already exited.

Marina Kolesnik, founder and CEO, Oktogo.ru

Following a consulting career at McKinsey and management role at DataArt, where she headed complex software development projects, Marina Kolesnik has leveraged her Harvard MBA to launch her own online venture Oktogo.ru two years ago. Since then, Marina raised $15 million in venture capital from European and Russian investors to make Oktogo.ru into Russia’s leading online hotel booking and travel site or “Booking.com of Russia”.

Pavel Cherkashin, co-founder, Krible and Kuznech

Having been Russian manager for Adobe and Siebel as well as Microsoft Russia’s general manager of consumer and online businesses, Pavel Cherkashin made a number of angel investments in online businesses in Russia. He now works for his investee companies: online customer support service Krible and image search Kuznech as well as helping other investees: online video site Tvigle.ru and mobile advertising network AdWired.

Alisa Chumachenko, founder and CEO, Game Insight

In online gaming, marketing is key. The former head of marketing at Astrum Online, which was merged into Mail.ru Group in 2008, Chumachenko started her own  social game publisher and developer Game Insight in late 2009. In 2011, she moved into mobile gaming to make Game Insight one of the leading gaming companies on Android.

Albert Popkov, founder, Sravni.ru

Popkov capitalised on the social networking boom in Russia. Back in 2006, he launched the social network company Odnoklassniki.ru. He then raised funding from DST and sold his startup to it later. Odnoklassniki, which is part of Mail.ru Group, has some 25 million monthly users. In 2009, Albert launched consumer banking comparison site Sravni.ru, which is now the leader in its category.

Yulia Mitrovich, Entrepreneur in Residence, Svyaznoy Group

A graduate of the University of British Columbia, Mitrovich was a McKinsey consultant before going to Web Media Group in Moscow to head its online video site Zoomby.ru.

In 2012 Mitrovich joined Svyaznoy Group, the leading mobile phone retailer in Russia, as Entrepreneur in Residence. No surprise, Svyaznoy founder Maxim Nogotkov was named Russia’s Entrepreneur of The Year 2010 by Ernst & Young.

Igor Matsanyuk, founder, IMI.VC

If the internet incubators are the new black, then mobile-focused business accelerators are the new, new black. Entrepreneur-turned-VC Matsanyuk has made a fortune by cashing out shares in Mail.ru Group during its IPO in late 2010.

One year before, he merged his online gaming company Astrum Online Entertainment into Mail.ru. Igor currently seeds mobile startups viaFarminers business incubator and own investment company IMI.VC.

Elena Masolova, co-founder and CEO, Pixonic

The Higher School of Economics graduate, Masolova co-founded the AddVenture seed-stage fund in Moscow in 2008 and was a founding member of coupon site Darberry, which became Groupon Russia. She currently heads social gaming company Pixonic, a portfolio company of AddVenture. She also eager to make angel investments in online startups and lead them later.

Anna Znamenskaya, founder, Workingmama

Following a ten-year executive career including CEO of Digital Access (online video portal ivi.ru), Rambler‘s commercial director and B2B Media CEO, Znamenskaya has ventured into entrepreneurship with her own online project for mothers, Workingmama.ru in late 2011. She is also receiving Master in Digital Marketing from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid this year.

Olga Steidl, partner, dots’n‘spaces

The St. Petersburg State University graduate Steidl has headed marketing at mobile software maker SPB Software before it was acquired by Yandex last November. After a short stint withYandex, she has settled in Zurich to help mobile startups via dots’n’spaces and organize mobile industry events. Steidl is also startup CEO herself and mentor at Seedcamp where Yandex recently invested.

FURTHER READING

• The Top 10 Russian Internet Startups
• Exclusive interview with Marina Kolesnik

This article originally appeared on Venture Village, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.