East-West Digital News 17 September 2012
The recent series of large scale investment in Russian e-commerce sites continues with Zoom Capital’s $30 million investment in Vseinstrumenti.ru, a website offering tools and appliances for use in homes and gardens as well as workshops and construction sites.
Vseinstrumenti.ru (“All instruments” or “all tools” in Russian) is one of those Russian online retailers that are little known in international business circles, but that have asserted themselves as leaders on the domestic market. The site currently stands as the 10th largest Russian online retailer of physical goods, according to EWDN’s 2011 ranking.
Founded in 2007 by Alexander Goltsov, Nikolai Gudovsky and Viktor Kuznetsov, who were 4th year students of the prestigious Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology at the time, Vseinstrumenti.ru has grown to more than 600 employees.
Under current plans, the company’s product assortment, which currently includes 30,000 SKUs from 300 international and Russian brands, will expand to no fewer than 150,000 items by 2014.
The company also has offline stores where customers can choose, test, and buy products, pick-up online orders, and receive professional advice. The network has been deployed in more than 30 major and medium-sized Russian cities. Vseinstrumenti.ru plans to cover 70 more cities in 2013.