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company development purposes. Neither the amount nor other details of the transaction were disclosed, but an “unnamed source close to the deal” told Vedomosti that Skillaz was valued at 1 billion rubles in total ($15 million at the current exchange rate). HeadHunter has received an option to complete the acquisition in the future, according to this source. Founded in 2015, Skillaz has developed tools to help companies automate personnel selection. These tools include robotic processing of job boards, social networks, and evaluation of candidates using AI. Skillaz’s solutions are used by such companies as Gazprom Neft, KPMG, MegaFon, Sberbank, Uber and others. In 2017, the startup was distinguished as “one of Russia’s 12 best startups” at an international event. Among the company’s shareholders are top managers from MegaFon, notes Vedomosti. HeadHunter is the leader in the online recruitment segment in Russia as well as in several neighboring Russian- speaking countries. It was founded in 2000 under the name ‘National Job Club’. Starting from 2007, Yuri Milner’s Digital Sky Technologies (which later became Mail.Ru Group) bought stakes in HeadHunter, but Mail.Ru Group sold the company in 2016. HeadHunter’s new owners are “investors close to Alisher Usmanov,” a key shareholder of Digital Sky Technologies and Mail.Ru Group, notes industry observer Yury Amnosov.
Siberian startup secures $1mn to develop “vertical farms” across Russia and Europe iFarm, a Novosibirsk, Siberia-based startup, has just secured $1mn in a round led by Gagarin Capital – the California-based VC firm founded by Nick Davidov and Mikhail Taver – with participation from individual Russian investors. The details of the deal have not been disclosed, reports East-West Digital News. "We created iFarm to grow natural vegetables, berries and greens in the city at any time of the year, using innovative technologies," the company says on its website. Russia has enormous agricultural potential, but the weather makes growing fruit and vegetables difficult on most of the country's territory. This agritech startup builds vertical farms, which “use a footprint of land more productively than traditional greenhouses.” It has also designed automated all-year-round greenhouses from 100 to 1000 sq.m. as well as growing trays “for growing greens and strawberry right in your restaurant or grocery.” iFarm’s first experimental projects were completed in 2017. The next year, iFarm developed vertical farms to grow such short-term crops as strawberries, lettuce and herbs. Two such vertical farms of 500 sq. m. were developed with grocery stores. This year, iFarm plans to launch a new 3,000 sq. m. project in Novosibirsk, a smaller one in Moscow (100-500 sq.m.), and to experiment its technology on the European market. It will also use the money raised in the recent round to develop further its technology and enlarge its team. The company has offices or representatives in Novosibirsk, Moscow and Luxembourg.
Rosnano, the Russian state-controlled nanotechnology corporation, has exited Quantenna Communications with a five-fold return on investment. Rosnano invested around $20mn into the US-based provider of high- performance Wi-Fi solutions six years ago . Revealed by SEC documents and confirmed by Rosnano, the exit transaction took place December 2018. The Russian firm received some $43mn in exchange for its stake of approximately 7% in the Quantenna. This provided Rosnano with a “more than fourfold ROI or 28.9% IRR in ruble equivalent,” according to Rosnano’s press service, or around twofold in US dollars, taken into account the ruble’s sharp depreciation since the year of the investment. Quantenna has a Russian R&D team of around 60 researchers and engineers, whose microschemes are praised by industry experts.
120 RUSSIA Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com