East-West Digital News 10 Mar 2012
Is Russia becoming a new frontier for US venture capitalists? With local startups and incubators springing up like mushrooms, a number of foreign tech investors have started to operate in the country, which is striving for modernization.
Exemplifying the invest in Russia trend is Tiger Global Management, a New York-based international investment management firm. Over the past two years Tiger has invested twice in the Russian e-commerce platform Wikimart.ru – $5 million in 2010 and another $7 million in 2011 – and contributed $10 million in a round of financing for online travel sales site Anywayanyday.ru.
Tiger also has shares in Yandex, the Russian search giant that began trading on the NASDAQ in May 2011, and formerly held a stake in Mail.ru, a leading email service and portal.
Another vivid example, from April of last year, is the whopping $55 million financing round for private shopping club KupiVip.ru, in which US venture fund Bessemer Venture Partners played a notable part. Also of note is the rise of Ostrovok.ru, a clone of Booking.com, which received $13.6 million last July from western funds and business angels such as Zyngo founder Mark Pincus, early Facebook investor Peter Thiel and Skype founder Niklas Zennström, among others.