Microsoft Seed Fund supports regional startup scene

Feb 1, 2013 | Central & Eastern Europe, News

Since the beginning of 2013, the Microsoft Seed Fund has provided a total of $110,000 in grants to two startups from Russia’s regions. A $50,000 grant went to RealSpeaker, a startup from Kazan, Tatarstan, which offers a new approach to speech recognition. The company...

Context ad service Begun seeks investor

Jan 29, 2013 | Central & Eastern Europe, News

Rambler-Afisha, an Internet group owned by Russian tycoon Vladimir Potanin’s ProfMedia holding, is seeking to attract an investor in Begun, a context advertising company which it fully acquired just months ago. In an >exchange with the Russian business daily...

St. Petersburg to host global finale of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2013

Jan 28, 2013 | News

Microsoft, Skolkovo, and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) are jointly organizing in St. Petersburg the final stage of ‘Imagine Cup 2013,’ this year’s international student technology contest. The event will occur in July in Russia’s former...

Payment operator Qiwi to invest up to $1 million in Russian and foreign startups

Jan 24, 2013 | Central & Eastern Europe, News

East-West Digital News 23 Jan 2013 Qiwi, a leading operator of cash payment terminals and electronic wallets operating in Russia and internationally, intends to invest in startups whose solutions could help the group develop its own offers. ‘Qiwi Venture’ will stand...

Chinese Firm Buys U.S. Solar Start-Up

Jan 10, 2013 | News

New York Times 9 January 2013 Just a few years ago, Silicon Valley investors were pouring money into solar technologies and talking about how they would bring the same kind of innovation to green energy that they had to the computer chip. But few anticipated that...

How to invest in Russian startups: An investor’s guide

Dec 18, 2012 | News

East-West Digital News by Adrien Henni This article is published in partnership with Russia Beyond The Headlines, an international source of political, business and cultural news and analysis. As a new generation of startup entrepreneurs is emerging in Russia, the...