July 2, 2012 at 17:24We have grown, invested in LinguaLeo and received a prize!
In fact, all the events that will be discussed below have already appeared in the news and were discussed in some form on the hub However, we still decided to take stock of the work of Runa Capital in June. The month turned out to be extremely saturated. Let's start in chronological order.
The most important event took place in early June - the size of the fund increased from $ 75 million to $ 135 million. This happened at the initiative of our partners - founders and owners of international technology businesses.
What will it change? The size of the investment and the stage of development of the companies in which we invest. At the time of the creation of Runa Capital, we planned to invest up to $ 5 million and only in startups at the sowing and early stages. Now our bar has grown to $ 10 million, and we will also be able to finance projects at the growth stage and later, and we will invest more and more serious amounts in Internet projects (the fund’s previous investments were mainly in software developers). Nevertheless, now with the increase in the size of the fund, resources have also appeared to actually incubate Internet projects of a very early stage, investing in them from $ 100 thousand to $ 1 million. So, if you have an idea for a web project and small team, waiting for her business plan at businessplan@runacap.com
The fund model, meanwhile, will remain the same. We intend to continue to invest in startups not only money, but also our expertise, experience in creating global companies, communications and hundreds of hours of time of the fund’s partners and specialists from the friendly companies founded by him.
The second event - investing $ 3 million in LinguaLeo - the most popular web service for learning English in the CIS countries. Already, its audience totals 1.5 million people. The potential of the startup is huge: in 2011, the global market for online English language training amounted to $ 1.31 billion, and every year it increases.
Our main goal is to make LinguaLeo a leader in the global market. Yes, she is extremely ambitious, but to achieve it is quite realistic.
Why do we believe in service? Firstly, tens of thousands of stories of successful examples of LinguaLeo users indicate the right choice of language teaching methodology. LinguaLeo allows you to study English words and phrases in the context of multimedia materials, go through interactive training and quests to consolidate, master thematic courses, watching the progress of learning in real time.
LinguaLeo will allow you to find a common language with anyone :)
Secondly, a strong market position. Two global competitors of the Russian service - Busuu and LiveMocha. Their daily audience is comparable to that of LinguaLeo (more than 80 thousand unique users). Weekly growth - 50 thousand users - exceeds the competitor.
Thirdly, understandable monetization and development plan. It is built on the freemium business model (free + premium): you can learn the language for free, but to speed up the process, make it more efficient, you can buy additional options.
$ 3 million will be used to expand the capabilities of the service, add new languages, as well as its localization in other countries. By the end of the year, the LinguaLeo team plans to release a product in Brazil and three more countries with high demand for learning English (Mexico, Spain and Germany), develop mobile applications for Android and iPad (applications for iPhone and WinPhone already work). In addition, the company is preparing the release of an interactive course to prepare Russian students for the exam in the English language.
Runa Capital's investment portfolio now has 12 companies from Russia, the USA, Great Britain, France and Ukraine. Plans are to finance 40-50 technology startups.
And the last, extremely pleasant event for us, - co-founder and managing partner of Runa Capital, founder of Parallels Sergey Belousov was named the businessman of the year according to the version of the newspaper Kommentsant. The best were selected in five categories. Sergey beat competitors in two - “Innovations” and “Internet Choice”.
Director of the Kurchatov Institute Mikhail Kovalchuk (left) and Sergey Belousov at the Kommersant of the Year award ceremony
In the first nomination, Sergey Belousov and the Parallels Research team were noted for creating Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure, the first software to compete with Amazon.
In the second, the manager of Runa Capital won over 12 applicants for a clear advantage, including Natalia Kasperskaya from Infowatch, Ruben Vardanyan, who merged Troika Dialog and Sberbank and David Yakobashvili, who combined Wimm-Bill-Dann and PepsiCo. More than half of all Internet voting participants voted for him.
Obviously, interest in cloud computing and information technology in Russia today is at a fairly high level.
Russian venture is not for cowards. A
moron can’t cope with a computer.
No wonder Shakespeare loves Belousov,
Shakespeare would have loved him too.
Shakespeare would have sung in a pathos sonnet,
British ladies charming a rumor,
How much he succeeded on the Internet
and in the development of cloud services.
And Hamlet would have gained many advantages,
When he behaved like Belousov,
Citizen-poet Dmitry Bykov dedicated such verses to citizen-innovation Sergey Belousov.
The most important event took place in early June - the size of the fund increased from $ 75 million to $ 135 million. This happened at the initiative of our partners - founders and owners of international technology businesses.
What will it change? The size of the investment and the stage of development of the companies in which we invest. At the time of the creation of Runa Capital, we planned to invest up to $ 5 million and only in startups at the sowing and early stages. Now our bar has grown to $ 10 million, and we will also be able to finance projects at the growth stage and later, and we will invest more and more serious amounts in Internet projects (the fund’s previous investments were mainly in software developers). Nevertheless, now with the increase in the size of the fund, resources have also appeared to actually incubate Internet projects of a very early stage, investing in them from $ 100 thousand to $ 1 million. So, if you have an idea for a web project and small team, waiting for her business plan at businessplan@runacap.com
The fund model, meanwhile, will remain the same. We intend to continue to invest in startups not only money, but also our expertise, experience in creating global companies, communications and hundreds of hours of time of the fund’s partners and specialists from the friendly companies founded by him.
The second event - investing $ 3 million in LinguaLeo - the most popular web service for learning English in the CIS countries. Already, its audience totals 1.5 million people. The potential of the startup is huge: in 2011, the global market for online English language training amounted to $ 1.31 billion, and every year it increases.
Our main goal is to make LinguaLeo a leader in the global market. Yes, she is extremely ambitious, but to achieve it is quite realistic.
Why do we believe in service? Firstly, tens of thousands of stories of successful examples of LinguaLeo users indicate the right choice of language teaching methodology. LinguaLeo allows you to study English words and phrases in the context of multimedia materials, go through interactive training and quests to consolidate, master thematic courses, watching the progress of learning in real time.
LinguaLeo will allow you to find a common language with anyone :)
Secondly, a strong market position. Two global competitors of the Russian service - Busuu and LiveMocha. Their daily audience is comparable to that of LinguaLeo (more than 80 thousand unique users). Weekly growth - 50 thousand users - exceeds the competitor.
Thirdly, understandable monetization and development plan. It is built on the freemium business model (free + premium): you can learn the language for free, but to speed up the process, make it more efficient, you can buy additional options.
$ 3 million will be used to expand the capabilities of the service, add new languages, as well as its localization in other countries. By the end of the year, the LinguaLeo team plans to release a product in Brazil and three more countries with high demand for learning English (Mexico, Spain and Germany), develop mobile applications for Android and iPad (applications for iPhone and WinPhone already work). In addition, the company is preparing the release of an interactive course to prepare Russian students for the exam in the English language.
Runa Capital's investment portfolio now has 12 companies from Russia, the USA, Great Britain, France and Ukraine. Plans are to finance 40-50 technology startups.
And the last, extremely pleasant event for us, - co-founder and managing partner of Runa Capital, founder of Parallels Sergey Belousov was named the businessman of the year according to the version of the newspaper Kommentsant. The best were selected in five categories. Sergey beat competitors in two - “Innovations” and “Internet Choice”.
Director of the Kurchatov Institute Mikhail Kovalchuk (left) and Sergey Belousov at the Kommersant of the Year award ceremony
In the first nomination, Sergey Belousov and the Parallels Research team were noted for creating Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure, the first software to compete with Amazon.
In the second, the manager of Runa Capital won over 12 applicants for a clear advantage, including Natalia Kasperskaya from Infowatch, Ruben Vardanyan, who merged Troika Dialog and Sberbank and David Yakobashvili, who combined Wimm-Bill-Dann and PepsiCo. More than half of all Internet voting participants voted for him.
Obviously, interest in cloud computing and information technology in Russia today is at a fairly high level.
Russian venture is not for cowards. A
moron can’t cope with a computer.
No wonder Shakespeare loves Belousov,
Shakespeare would have loved him too.
Shakespeare would have sung in a pathos sonnet,
British ladies charming a rumor,
How much he succeeded on the Internet
and in the development of cloud services.
And Hamlet would have gained many advantages,
When he behaved like Belousov,
Citizen-poet Dmitry Bykov dedicated such verses to citizen-innovation Sergey Belousov.