Asserting its leadership in the fast-growing Russian e-commerce market, Ozon.ru confirmed yesterday it has completed the full acquisition of leading online shoe and accessory retailer Sapato.ru for an undisclosed amount.

Ozon’s intentions had been revealed earlier this month when the Russian antimonopoly authorities gave their green light for the deal...

Finam Capital, the venture arm of the largest Russian brokerage and investment holding, will invest $10 million to release a special version IM+ in Russia. IM+ is a popular instant messenger made by German mobile app publisher Shape.

Shape and Finam will create a joint venture in which the latter will own a minority, non blocking stake...

SaaS website security services provider StopTheHacker announced earlier this week that it received $1.1 million in initial funding from public and private investors including Runa Capital, a Russian early-stage venture capital firm, and Brian NeSmith, former CEO of Bluecoat.

StopTheHacker’s proprietary, patent-pending technology helps solve web-scalesecurity problems involving malware on websites, hacker attacks and other types of online abuse. It uses machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, based on years of research at the University of California, Riverside, and originally funded ...

Russian business daily Kommersant reported from unnamed sources on Friday that VTB Capital invested $10 million in Oktogo.ru, a leading Russian online hotel booking startup, in exchange for a stake of 30 to 35 percent in a capital increase operation. VTB Capital left EWDN’s request for confirmation or comments unanswered.

Oktogo, which was founded in 2010, claims its traffic reaches 18,000 daily users on average and up to 25,000 on peak days, project founder Maria Kolesnik told Kommersant. Oktogo’s revenues reached $10 million in 2011 and Kolesnik expects them to triple in 2012...

Heverest.ru, a Moscow-based online retailer of sports and recreational equipment launched by Fast Lane Ventures in June 2011, has attracted a new investment of $4.3 million – just three months after securing $1.3 million in financing. The total investment in this startup now comes to $6.7 million.

eVenture Capital Partners, the venture arm of the Otto Group, took part in both rounds of financing, but the identities of two other investors remain mysterious. One of them, Rollingahead Ltd., has no website; the name of the other, a participant in the latest round, has not been disclosed. Fast Lane Ventures declined ...

Sberbank, the Russian national savings bank, announced on Friday the creation of a $100 million venture fund to finance growth stage startups developing IT solutions for the financial industry. “Not only will the fund invest in Russian startups, it will support the most promising innovation anywhere in the world,” the bank’s press release states...

Russian Venture Company (RVC), the state-owned fund of funds dedicated to innovation, is looking to invest in US startups through a newly-established office in Boston.

RVC-USA presents itself as a “visionary and strategic investor that melds the innovation of US startups with the resources of Russia.” Its possibilities include direct investment in local startups, in particular those who would like to host R&D in Russia. The Russian fund will focus on making early-stage investments, in the range of $1 million to $3 million, in IT, life sciences, semiconductors and clean tech. But Tillman ruled out any form ...

Russian Venture Company (RVC), the state-owned fund of funds dedicated to innovation, announced yesterday its cooperation with the Investment and Venture Fund of the Republic of Tatarstan (IVFRT) in the creation of a new international fund of funds. The new fund, named RVC IVFRT LP, will invest in international venture funds focusing on innovative companies...

Ostrovok.ru, an online hotel booking service launched in 2010 in Russia, has raised an undisclosed amount from Erik Blachfold, CEO of Expedia, Hotwire and Tripit founder Gregg Brockway and Altimeter Capital’s Brad Gerstner.

This Series B round of financing comes six months after Ostrovok raised $13.6 million from General Catalyst Partners, AccelPartners, Founders Fund and Atomico Ventures as well as from prominent Western business angels...

RTI, a large Russian group of high-tech research and production companies, announced on Tuesday the acquisition of NVision, a Moscow based system integrator with regional representative offices in Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg, as well as in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

RTI will pay $200 million in exchange for a 50% stake in NVision, while the remaining 50% will be swapped through an additional share issue by RTI. The deal will be finalized by the end of Q3 2012, NVision’s press service told ComNews.ru, a Russian online publication covering the IT and telecom markets...

Russian e-commerce giant Ozon.ru is considering the aquisition of online footwear retailer Sapato.ru, having received the green light from the antimonopoly authorities on February 1st.

Ozon has not yet made a final decision,  and is also considering other acquisitions, the company’s PR manager Maria Nazamutdinova told Russian business information site Marker.ru...

Russia’s leading WiMax provider Scartel, working under the Yota brand, has sold 100% of its stake in Yota Del Peru, a subsidiary it created in 2010 with Multinet Group, a discrete Russian company operating 4G networks in African and Asian countries, among other telecom activities.

The acquiring parties included ICT Group, one of the largest privately owned investment and industrial companies in Russia and A&NN, a prominent Russian investment fund operating in a diversified range of industries...

The Rambler-Afisha group invested “hundreds of thousand dollars” in Ichiba.ru, Rambler founder Anton Terekhov told the RIA Novosti news agency last week. Launched in April of last year, Ichiba.ru is an e-commerce marketplace allowing any merchant to present and sell its products online easily. Ichiba claims its catalog includes 3.5 million items from over 400 merchants.

Among Rambler’s other e-commerce properties are the price comparison service Price.ru, the theater ticket sales service Rambler Kassa, and Rambler Avia, an air ticket sales site launched last year...

MegaFon, a major Russian mobile operator, made a further step last Friday towards business diversification and regional expansion by acquiring Yugratel, a broadband Internet and cable TV provider operating in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District of Western Siberia.

Yugratel was sold through an auction sale by the local authorities for 2.4 billion rubles, or approximately $76 million...