Page 20 - BNE_magazine_03_2020 wellness

20 I Companies & Markets bne March 2020
bne:Tech
Founder of fintech firm Revolut Perestersky becomes Russia’s latest tech billionaire
Ben Aris in Berlin
Russia has a new tech billionaire after the fintech firm Revolut raised $500mn, lifting the worth of the company’s founder and CEO, Russian-born Nikolai Perestersky, to $1.65bn, RBC reported on February 16.
Founded in 2015 and based in London by Perestersky and Ukrainian national Vlad Yatsenko, Revolut provides an
online banking service that focuses in particular on providing multicurrency services cheaply. The company has just completed another round of financing and raised $500mn to fund further expansion, bringing its overall valuation to $6bn.
Perestersky is believed to own 30% in the company, according to two Forbes sources, which puts his personal fortune at $1.65bn. Revolut declined to comment on the deal that was first reported by the Daily Telegraph.
The fortune of Russian-born Nikolai Perestersky, founder and CEO of fintech firm Revolut, increased to $1.65bn following a recent $500mn funding round.
Already providing its services to most of Europe, Revolut plans to launch soon in Russia, the US, Japan and other markets where it is not yet present.
PitchBook claims that the main investor in the latest fund raising was Technology Crossover Ventures, which contributed $150mn to the latest round of fundraising and has previously invested more than $13bn in technology companies like Airbnb and Spotify.
Revolut COO Richard Davis told the Financial Times that the $500mn raised will allow the startup to “double that amount of growth”. At the end of September, the company announced a partnership with Visa to launch operations in 24 new countries.
Online sales up 22% y/y in Romania last year
bne IntelliNews
The turnover of the e-commerce sector in Romania hit €4.3bn in 2019, an increase of 22% compared to 2018, according to GPeC based on data supplied by major local online retailers members of the Romanian Association of Online Stores (ARMO) quoted by Agerpres.
The turnover includes the purchases of tangible goods made from local and foreign online stores but not including services, air tickets, vacation, travel, hotel reservations or utilities payments.
GPeC is the largest community of Romanian online retailers, set up with the aim of evaluating market dynamics.
“The pace of growth in 2019 vs. 2018 was slower compared to that in 2018 vs. 2017, when the growth rate was about 30%,” the report reads.
The report also quoted Eurostat data, according to which only 23% of the population of Romania made online purchases in 2019, which places the country second-to-last in the European Union, ahead of only Bulgaria with 22%.
According to the document, the sum of €4.3bn , as estimated by the Romanian e-commerce market, is strictly the e-tail segment, representing physical (tangible) products that were purchased through the Internet.
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