Tagged: russia

FinstarLabs Selects Mark Ruddock as CEO to Develop International Fintech Hub

Mark Ruddock has been appointed CEO of FinstarLabs. This appointment was described as a “major statement” and reflecting the commitment of Oleg Boyko, Founder and Chairman of Finstar Financial Group, to the continued growth of Finstar’s fintech and financial services investment program. FinstarLabs was created… Read More

In Media Res: Central Bank of Russia Developing Crowdfunding Regulation

Currently Russia’s emerging crowdfunding sector accounts for less than 500 million rubles (USD 7,748,755) in total liabilities, and shows disproportion of different segments and high volatility. The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has initiated a working group of market experts from more than ten local crowdfunding platforms for the development… Read More

Russian Marketplace Lending Startup Blackmoon Financial Secures $2.5 Million in Equity Funding

Blackmoon Financial Group, an online lending platform that connects balance sheet lenders with institutional investors looking to purchase new loans, announced today its latest round of funding; $2.5 million in equity capital from Target Global, A&NN Group, Flint Capital, and several private investors. Blackmoon intends to use the new round… Read More

Russia’s Largest Bank, Sberbank, Adds Apple Pay for Russian Market

Sberbank is Russia’s largest bank with over 135 million customers. Sberbank holds almost one-third of aggregate Russian banking sector assets, it is the key lender to the national economy and the biggest deposit taker in Russia. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation is the founder… Read More

Oleg Seydak on Blackmoon & Marketplace Lending as a Service

Blackmoon Financial Group is a newer entry into the marketplace lending sector.  Launched in 2014, Blackmoon is marketed as “marketplace lending as a service” or MLaaS. Focusing on balance sheet lenders, Blackmoon has developed technologies to provide integration with  loan originators with institutional investors. The platform… Read More

Athletes From All Over Support Russian Team Whistleblowers’ Crowdfunding Campaign (Video)

Following the announcement that the Russian Olympic Team might be facing disqualification from participating in the 2016 Rio Olympics for doping, athletes from all over the world showed their support for the whistleblowers involved in the now infamous scandal through a crowdfunding campaign. The initiative’s description… Read More

Finstar Adds to Executive Bench as it Boosts Fintech Investment

Last spring, Finstar Financial Group announced the appointment of Paul Muhr, previously a Vice President at Citi and before that at Goldman Sachs. Today, Finstar is announcing three new hires as it prepares for additional investment in the Fintech sector. Finstar has hired Eugene Timko as… Read More

Sberbank, Largest Bank in Russia, Invests in Uber

Bank’s are not known for taking on risk – they are known for avoiding it as much as possible. This is not the case with Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, and their venture fund as they see opportunity in the digital future. Sberbank’s SBT… Read More

Oleg Boyko’s Finstar Looks to Build Big Fintech Portfolio

Finstar Financial Group wants to build its Fintech portfolio and has hired Paul Muhr, an experienced investment banker to boost M&A and capital markets projects. Until recently Muhr was a Vice President at Citi and before that at Goldman Sachs. Muhr’s hiring is said to… Read More

Oleg Boyko’s Finstar Financial Acquires 51% of P2P Lender Prestamos Prima

Moscow-based Finstar Financial Group has acquired a controlling stake (51%) in Prestamos Prima. According to the company, Prestamos Prima has been operating in the non-bank lending and alternative finance market, specifically Spain, since 2012. Prestamos Prima operates Viventor, a peer to peer investing platform open… Read More

Latvian Marketplace Lender TWINO Enters Polish, Danish & Georgian Markets

Latvian-based marketplace lender, Twino, which opened in May of this year and had just reached one million euros of investment, announced this month that it is launching an expansion throughout Europe into markets that are new for the P2P industry. Now, Twino investors will have… Read More

NUMA Moscow Signs with Particeep to Power Accelerator Program

Particeep, a white label crowdfunding and crowdsourcing platform, has partnered with NUMA Moscow to power its accelerator program for Russian startups. Paris-based Particeep is a suite of applications including crowdfunding and collaboration management.  As internet finance starts to dominate the early stage funding, Particeep can allow its… Read More

Russia’s CarPrice Captures $40 million During Series B Funding Round

CarPrice, an online used car broker and auctioneer based out of Russia, announced that it closed $40 million in Series B funding led by Baring Vostok Private Equity Fund V, with additional participation from Almaz Capital and other investors. The funding will be used to… Read More

Russian Journalist Vladimir Yakovlev Launches Kickstarter For Independent Media Project

Earlier this week, Russian journal and founder/editor-in-chief of the Kommersant Newspaper, Vladimir Yakovlev, turned to crowdfunding giant Kickstarter with a brand new project that will hopefully improve the media in his country. Explaining details about the campaign, Yakovlev stated: “Russia today is torn by hatred caused by a… Read More

Russian Muslims Seeks Funds Through Boomstarter For Mobile Mosque in Moscow

Ready to find an alternative to the four small mosques in Moscow, a group of Russian Muslims has launched a Boomstarter initiative to raise 850,000 for a mobile mosque. Explaining details about the project, the campaign’s organizer Alsou Hafiz shared that the two million Muslims in… Read More

Suspended Kickstarter Areal Reveals Reasons for Shutdown

Claims of Russian Interference and Death Threats as Campaign is Re-Launched on Areal web site. Just a few days after Kickstarter pulled the plug on the bizarre crowdfunding campaign for West Games’ Areal, the video gaming studio reveals even more drama has been involved in… Read More

Questions Swirl Around GoBe Campaign As Crowdfunding Approaches $750K

We reported on the GoBe last week as the campaign was crossing $300,000 on Indiegogo. The campaign seeks to fund a new activity tracker that promises some really slick functionality, including the ability to read calories burned during exercise based on glucose levels in our cells…. Read More

Fitness Tracker That Measures Calories is Over $300,000 on Indiegogo

Healbe GoBe Triples Goal of $100,000 in First Few Days of Crowdfunding Campaign. The GoBe launched their campaign on Indiegogo on March 5, 2014.  Seven days later the funding total has surpassed $321,000 with 35 days left on the campaign. Over 1790 backers have signed… Read More

Lightpack Raised Half a Million on Kickstarter, Now Shifts to Retail Sales

This is a pretty cool product that offered up a pretail crowdfunding camaign on Kickstarter almost a year ago.  Lightpack is an ambient backlight system for your display.  Best thing to do is watch the pitch video and you will get it, but in brief… Read More

Global Entrepreneurship Congress, 17-20 March 2014, Moscow

The Global Entrepreneurship Congress is an inter-disciplinary gathering of startup champions from around the world-where entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, thought leaders and policymakers work together to help bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare. The 2014 Congress takes place from March 17–20, 2014, in… Read More

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