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merchants, as well as cross-border e-commerce and price comparison. In 2017 Yandex.Market sold RUB150bn worth of goods, and targets RUB500bn turnover in five years, which would need sustained 60% annual growth.
Sistema Venture Capitals , the venture fund of Russia's AFK Sistema multi-industry investment conglomerate together with Chinese Alibaba Group invested $26.4mn in Israeli start up SQream , Vedomosti daily said on May 30. The amount invested by Sistema VC was not disclosed, but unnamed sources told the daily that this makes one of the largest tech investments of Sistema to date and is estimated between "several and ten USD millions." SQream develops data storage and processing solutions using Nvidia graphic processors, allowing over 100-fold speed gains as compared to traditional processors. The technology promises breakthroughs in such industries telecom, security, big data marketing, and even cancer research. Sistema VC has a capital of RUB10bn ($161mn). In February 2017 Russia's largest bank Sberbank and Maginvest of Viktor Rashnikov invested RUB2bn in the VC in exchange for 205 stake. Previous investment of Sistema VC include VisionLabs face recognition solutions, AI-based virtual cybersports coach gosu.ai, and Russian freelance services platform YouDo.com. Most recent reports showed that Alibaba, along with Russian mobile major MTS, is also interested in becoming one of the main investors in YouDo .
Russian mobile major MTS and Chinese internet group Alibaba will invest in the Russian online platform for freelance and self-employed workers YouDo , Kommersant daily said on May 29 citing unnamed investment sources. "This is a complicated deal with several investors coming in," one of the sources told the daily, noting that YouDo was oversubscribed with incoming bids. Both Alibaba and MTS intend to integrate YouDo in their existing online businesses. Reportedly MTS wanted to acquire 100% of the start-up, but the whole of the platform is not currently for sale by the shareholders. This makes the fourth round of investment. Until now YouDo raised $10mn, and the upcoming round is planned to raise "several times more", the co-founder of YouDo Alexei Gifirim told Kommersant . Currently the platform has 0.7mn verified freelance service providers, has 2mn-3mn unique visitors a months and monthly turnover of RUB0.5bn-0.6bn. Among current shareholders of YouDo are funds Flint Capital and United Capital Partners, with 5.6% stake held by the venture fund of AFK Sistema investment holding and 3.7% by the main shareholder of Qiwi payment service Sergei Solonin.
Russian internet services major Yandex presented smart speaker and voice assistant device Yandex.Station (Yandex.Stanciya) at the Yet Another Conference. The device is able to recognise sounds, turn on the music, connect to the TV and perform tasks requested by the users. The retail price of the device that will hit the markets this summer will be RUB9,990 ($159). Yandex.Station will sell together with free six-months subscription to Yandex.Podpiska on-line service package. Reports that Yandex is developing an AI-driven smart speaker and assistant have been circulating since summer 2017. Most recently the company launched voice assistant Alisa, analogous to Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and Google Home assistants. In the fourth quarter of 2016 global sales of smart speakers soared by 600% to 4.2mn units, Vedomosti daily said on May 29 citing the data by Strategy Analytics. Amazon's Alexa is the market leader with 88%, followed by Google with 10% market share.
88 RUSSIA Country Report June 2018 www.intellinews.com