Russian-speaking Founders Who Raised $10M+ in 2020
Different events happened in the VC industry during 2020: some companies took off like a rocket while others had to close. Some VC funds temporarily stopped their investment activity, some continued to invest, in spite of the lock down. Nevertheless, there were a lot of big rounds and companies which raised more than $10M. As for Russian-speaking founders, there were mainly a few companies that everyone is aware of: Revolut, Miro, Arrival, Ecwid, Ivi.ru, and Ozon. I tried to collect as many companies as possible with Russian-speaking entrepreneurs on board who raised more than $10M.
Behavox
Erkin Adylov (CEO), Alexander Glasman (Co-founder), Kiryl Trembovolski (COO), Roman Zelov (co-founder)
Feb 2020, $100M
Behavox is an enterprise platform that unifies all types of data into a single data lake, allowing users to query the data and apply machine learning to identify capital markets misconduct and insider threats.
Personio
Arseniy Vershinin, CTO
Series C, Jan 2020, $75M; + Series D, Jan 2021, $125M
The company enables its customers to store and manage all employee data and HR processes in one place, including vacation and sick days, approvals, salary, attendance, employee documents, performance, reporting,and employee on-boarding. Its recruiting function comprises applicant tracking, interview scheduling, candidate reviews, and many other features.
BigID
Dmitri Sirota, CEO
Series D, Dec 2020, $70M
BigID develops software that helps companies have secure customer data and satisfy privacy regulations. It uses advanced machine learning and identity intelligence to help enterprises better protect their customer and employee data at a petabyte-scale. The company helps organizations manage and protect their customer data, meet data privacy and protection regulations like the CCPA and GDPR, and leverage unmatched coverage for all data across all data stores.
Nova Credit
Misha Esipov, CEO
Series B, Feb 2020, $50M
Nova Credit helps you access credit in the U.S. by translating your international credit score into a U.S.-equivalent credit score. This translated score is made available to U.S. financial institutions so you can apply for credit cards, loans, housing and more without having to build a U.S. credit score from scratch.
At-Bay
Roman Itskovich, Co-founder & CRO
Series B, Feb 2020, $34M and Series C, Dec 2020, $34M
At-Bay is a company operating a cyber insurance and risk management platform. It offers insurance products and security insights based on company IT systems and vulnerabilities. The coverage areas include information privacy, network security, business interruption, cyber extortion, financial fraud, and media content.
PandaDoc
Mikita Mikado, CEO
Aug 2020, $30M
PandaDoc is an all-in-one document automation software that streamlines the process of creating, approving, and eSigning proposals, quotes, and contracts. Using PandaDoc, revenue teams can provide their customers a more professional, timely, and engaging experience.
Sensel
Ilya Rosenberg, CEO
Series A, Mar 2020, $28M
Sensel is a company that develops pressure-sensitive touchpad devices designed to translate user intentions. Its touchpad devices are multi-touch, sensitive, low power and mobile which detect anything with mass and the individual pressure and orientation of every single contact point.
Nylas
Gleb Polyakov, CEO
Series B, Jun 2020, $25M
Nylas provides an API platform that enables developers to quickly and securely access and process user data from any email and calendar.
110 Industries
Sergei Kolobashkin, Anton Poletaev
Aug 2020, $20M
110 Industries is a video game production company with a focus on AAA titles for gaming consoles and cloud gaming services.
Ermetic
Michael Dolinsky, CTO
Series A, Jul 2020, $17.3M
Ermetic enables enterprises to protect cloud infrastructures (IaaS/PaaS) from access-related risks and misconfigurations by maintaining continuous visibility into identities, their entitlements and data usage. By combining analytics with granular, full stack insight, Ermetic makes it possible to enforce least privilege access at scale even inthe most complex cloud environments.
Beacon
Dmitri Izmailov, Co-Founder & COO
Series A, Jun 2020, $15M
Beacon is a company that provides an enterprise platform intended to offer logistics and trade finance. Its offerings include door-to-door ocean, air, and land shipping and finance loans with flexible rates. Interesting that one of the investors is Jeff Bezos.
MEL Science
Vassili Philippov, Founder & CEO and Sergey Safonov, COO
Series B, Dec 2020, $14M
MEL Science is an educational startup focused to change early science education with a combination of up-to-date technologies and hands on experience. Their main products are monthly subscription to chemistry kits and chemistry lessons in VR for schools.
Honorlock
Elena Soboleva, Co-founder
Series A, Mar 2020, $11.5M
Honorlock provides remote proctoring services for online assessments using webcams and screen-capturing technology. The company combines traditional methods of proctoring such as webcam, lockdown browser, and ID verification with its new patented search and destroy technology to create a world-class proctoring solution.
Mobalytics
Bogdan Suchyk and Nikolay Lobanov
Series A, July 2020, $11.3
Mobalytics is an eSports company creating a new, more robust way for competitive gamers to analyze and improve their performance. The company is developing a Gamer Performance Index (GPI) that involves using in-game data available from game APIs and crunching it through machine learning algorithms to analyze and improve player performance across several areas crucial for competitive gaming.
Feathr
Aleksander Levental, CEO
Series B, Jan 2020, $11M
Feathr is a comprehensive marketing platform for events and associations. It provides marketing tools like ads, invites, and conversations that work together to help in the growth of the events, boosting event attendance, increasing marketing ROI, and attracting and engaging members. The company’s platform creates personalized experiences through data, insights, and digital communication.
Finom
Iakov Novikov and Konstantin Stiskin
Seed, Sep 2020, $10.3M
Finom combines digital business account benefits with multiple services to provide financial solutions for entrepreneurs, self-employed, and freelancers. It pulls together accounting, financial management, and banking functions for early-stage businesses and SMEs into one mobile-first product.
Preply
Kirill Bigai, CEO
Mar 2020, Series A, $10M
Preply is a provider of an online tutoring marketplace intended to promote faster learning with one-on-one online tutors. The company’s marketplace helps to find and book professional private tutors online from over 185 countries, enabling users to achieve their goals and speak confidently.
IntTerra
Vitaliy Buzu, CEO
Apr 2020, Series A, $10M
IntTerra develops decision support tools for various companies in the agriculture industry. The company integrates various technologies into one platform via high-quality weather data, satellite data, forecast of optimal windows for the application of crop protection, and agricultural machinery data.
A few more interesting companies raised less than $10M, but also deserve being mentioned:
Elevate Security
Masha Sedova, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer
Sep 2020, $8.3M
Elevate Security, the leader in Human Risk Management software, helps security leaders in enterprises measure, communicate and reduce human risk to keep their companies safe from cyber threats.
Allset
Stas Matviyenko (CEO), Anna Polishchuk (CPO)
Series B, Mar 2020, $8.3M, Total Funding Amount $16.6M
Allset offers food pre-ordering service and a platform that connects local restaurants to its busy diners.
DMarket
Vlad Panchenko (CEO), Tamara Slanova (CFO), Alexander Kokhanovskyy (Co-founder)
Jun 2020, $7.2M, Total Funding Amount $26.2M
DMarket is a platform enabling secure buying, selling, and trading of in-game items to help developers attract more players, make more money, and increase the lifetime value of their game.
Usually, only a few companies with Russian-speaking founders are known in the media: some of them either prefer not to mention themselves in the media or disclose information about rounds. Therefore, it seems that Russian-speaking founders rarely raise big rounds. However, if you dive deeper, you can always find something interesting.
If I forgot someone, please leave a comment below!
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