Page 10 - bne_Tech_03_2020

Leaders
March 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
Today SEMrush has one of the largest backlink indices in the world. And SEMrush helps
a publisher build up both.
Bootstrap
“The company was bootstrapped from the beginning, but we decided to take in some extra money so that we could be comfortable with experimenting,” says Levin. “And we wanted to work with these people as they were going to be useful for the business.”
Levin says that one of the issues for the development of the company was being able to attract top talent and to do that the company needs to look like a classic tech company.
Russia’s internet giant Yandex announces growing and more diversified revenues in 2019
In February Yandex, the NASDAQ-listed Russian Internet giant, announced its unaudited financial results for Q4 and FY 2019. Consolidated yearly revenues grew 37% from 2018, reaching 175.4bn rubles ($2.83bn). Yandex’s adjusted net income increased by a more modest 6% to 23.5bn rubles ($380.3mn).
These results are below what analysts had pencilled in, pushing Yandex’s share price down 4% from recent record highs. Stocks in the tech behemoth were trading at $46.57 on Tuesday morning trading in New York.
Yandex’s diversification away from advertising revenues intensified, with ad income accounting for 69.4% of total revenues — down from 95.6%
While the founders Melnikov and Shchegolev are from Eastern Europe, and St Petersburg remains a major hub for the development team, SEMrush remains a US company. St Petersburg is important as there is more development talent available there simply as the competition for talent is less. Today SEMrush is headquartered in Boston with additional offices in in Philadelphia, Dallas, Czech Republic, Cyprus and St Petersburg.
“There are very good people in St Petersburg,” says Levin. “And it is a very good place to live and work. Developers from St Petersburg are regular winners of the programming Olympics and can compete with engineers from the US, Israel and other countries.”
in 2016. The shift was led by a surge in income from the taxi segment, which now accounts for for nearly 22% of total revenues, compared with just 3% in 2016.
“Taxi segment” refers not only to Yandex.Taxi, the ride-hailing joint venture, which was formed with Uber in 2017. Yandex’s self-driving cars division (“SDC”) and foodtech businesses (including Yandex.EATs, Yandex.Chef, a meal kit subscription service, and Yandex.Lavka, a hyperlocal grocery delivery service) are also included.
This taxi segment turned profitable last year. Adjusted EBITDA was 271mn rubles in Q4 2019, up from negative 129mn rubles in Q4 2018. “The increase of adjusted EBITDA was driven