Intelegencia Entertainment has been founded by Laurent Saillard, a French citizen who has been living in Russia for the last ten years. He worked for RTL Group and Endemol.

Intelegencia Entertainment produces poker game shows for Russian TV broadcasters CTC, REN TV and TV3.

The most popular Russian social networking site Vkontakte.ru attracted 14.3 million visitors (45% reach), followed by Odnoklassniki.ru (7.8 million visitors), Mail.ru’s My World (6.3 million visitors), Fotostrana.ru (1.6 million visitors) and Privet.ru (942,000 visitors). Yandex-owned Moikrug.ru attracted 839,000 visitors in May 2009.

Russia has the world’s most engaged social networking audience, with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month, ahead of Brasil (6.3 hours per visitor), Canada (5.3 hours per visitor), Spain, UK, and Germany. United States ranked 9th at 4.2 hours.

In May 2009, Mail.ru-majority owner and Odnoklassniki.ru & Vkontakte investor Digital Sky Technologies (DST) acquired a 2 percent stake in Facebook for $200 million.

MySpace opened the Russian office in Moscow in 2008. MySpace Russia operations is managed by CEO Alexander Turkot. The company lists 8 employees on its Russian web-page.

According to TNS Web Index, MySpace has a monthly reach of 1 million people in Russia in May 2009 vs. leading Russian social networks VKontakte.ru with a monthly reach of more than 13 million people and Odnoklassniki.ru with a monthly reach of 12 million people.

The Russian social networking market is dominated by Russian social networks Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki.ru and MoiKrug (which was acquired by Yandex in 2007).

Mail.ru 2008 revenues were $74.6 million, up 45% from 2007. The net income was $34.3 million in 2008, up 29% from 2007. Mail.ru net income margin was 46%. Mail.ru has a staff of 450 employees in offices in Moscow and six Russian regional cities.

Mail.ru, which turned 10 years old in October 2008, has postponed a London-based IPO last summer.

Mail.ru has a monthly audience of more than 40 million, which is similar in size to audiences of Yandex and Rambler. However, Mail.ru generated annual revenues 4 times less than Yandex ($300 million) and 32% less than Rambler ($110 million) in 2008. In contrast, Mail.ru net income margin of 46% was much higher than Rambler’s margin of 3%. Yandex did no disclose its net income in 2008.

The three companies Yandex, Rambler Media and Mail.ru hold 80% of Russian internet advertising market valued at $590 million in 2008.

ERP and mutimedia software vendor 1C Company, which is controlled by founder and CEO Boris Nuraliev, generated revenues of $450 million and income of $55 million in 2008.

BVCP raised Baring Vostok Private Equity Fund IV with total committed capital of $1.05 billion in February 2007. This was the largest private equity fund in Central and Eastern Europe at the time. The funds under management of BVCP paid cumulative dividends of $1,232 million in 1998 - 2007.

BVCP says that 27% of capital invested by Baring Vostok funds has been into telecommunication, media and technology sectors. BVCP is a major investor in search engine Yandex, online store Ozon.ru, IT services provider for financial institutions CFT, financial risk management software vendor Riskdata, WiMax telecom operator Enforta, wireless broadband equipment vendor Infinet Wireless, and the others.

Founded in 2007 as a result of a merger of several online digital book libraries, LitRes has more than 200 thousand registered users and 1 million unique monthly visitors. LitRes has more than 19,000 ebooks in its catalog from more than 4,500 authors. LitRes pays authors a share for each ebook sold. The site says its average ebook price is only 11 Rubles (34 cents).

Founded in 1991, Eksmo holds 15 percent share of Russian book publishing market. The company published more than 10,000 book titles with a total print run of 99.7 million copies in 2008. In September 2007, Eksmo acquired a majority stake in audio book publishing business of CDCom.

Direct Group

As part of the deal, Direct Group CEO Pascal Clément will join KupiVIP.ru’s Board. Direct Group, which sold a majority stake in “Russia’s Amazon” Ozon.ru to Baring Vostok Capital Partners in late 2006, shall bring its expertise in distance selling and logistics to KupiVIP.ru.

The Russian designer clothes, shoes and accessories market is valued at $5 billion per year, of which KupiVIP.ru aims to capture 3 percent over the next few years and reach annual sales of $150 million.

Founded in 2008, KupiVIP.ru previously raised funding from Mangrove Capital Partners, Arlan and ABRT Fund. The online shopping club has more than 500,000 registered users. Its current monthly sales exceed $1 million.

Founded in 1996, Direct Group is a leader in market expansion services in Russia. It owns a majority stake in leading Russian women-centric site WomanJournal.ru, which raised EUR 6 million from French VC investors last summer.

Russian Venture Company

Igor Agamirzyan, General Director of RVK, announced at Moscow Venture Forum today that RVK will launch a “seed” fund of 2 billion Rubles (ca. $65 million), reported Vedomosti newspaper.

RVK will invest up to 25 million rubles ($0.8 million) for a minimum 25% stake in a startup company alongside a private investor. RVK will provide 75% of total funding while private investor shall provide the remaining 25% funding. The startup projects shall be selected and introduced to RVK by “accredited” venture partners.

RVK plans to fund 50 to 80 companies over the next 3 years.

Most of mobile ad spending in Russia go to WAP sites and mobile marketing. Mobile internet advertising consist of spending on advertising delivered to mobile phones via text messages, display ads, video ads, local search, and other formats designed for mobile handset screens.

The leading Russian mobile advertising service MobileDirect raised funding from Ru-Net last year. In September 2008, Phonevalley, part of Publicis Groupe, launched operations in Russia.

In comparison, the mobile advertising revenues in the U.S. and Canada were estimated at $208 million in 2009 by Parks Associates.