Buran Venture Capital invests US$3.5m in ivi.ru.
September 25, 2015 – European venture capital fund Buran Venture Capital (www.buranvc.com) invests US$3.5m in ivi.ru (www.ivi.ru) – the leading Russian online video streaming platform.
Current monthly audience of ivi.ru has reached 20 million unique visitors that are watching more than 150 million videos. These results make ivi.ru a clear leader among top Russian online video platforms. The company also succeeded in monetization of its user base through a subscription model resulting in four times increase of subscription revenue compared to the previous year.
Oleg Tumanov, the Founder and CEO of ivi.ru said: “We’re glad to see Buran Venture Capital among our shareholders. The fund backed leading internet companies both in Russia and globally, and has an outstanding experience in investing and media business space. We also expect that Buran’s experience in international markets development would be useful for us. When such a reputable investor joins the business this significantly increase company’s credibility and we highly appreciate it”.
Alexander Konoplyasty, Managing Partner, Buran Venture Capital: “Russian online video market is one of the largest and fast growing markets in Europe. Ivi.ru succeeded to strengthen its leadership position not only in terms of audience and catalogue size, but also in terms of quality of the product. We are pleased to support ivi.ru and its management team in achieving their ambitious goals”.
About ivi.ru:
ivi.ru is a leading Russian online video streaming platform. The company works with international and Russian major content producers: Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Fox, Sony Pictures, Disney, Mosfilm, Bazelevs, Central Partnership and many others. Along with web streaming channel, the company has a strong presence on mobile devices and Smart TV.
About Buran Venture Capital:
Buran Venture Capital is a European focused venture fund founded in 2012. Target sectors include services e-commerce, mobile applications, SaaS and IoT solutions in CEE, CIS, Israel and Turkey.
The investment portfolio includes Ponominalu.ru (www.ponominalu.ru), SravniKupi (www.sravnikupi.ru), Netology Group (www.netology-group.ru), Dashboard Systems (www.boardmaps.com), Shazam (
www.shazam.com) and GetIntent (www.getintent.com).
The founders of Buran Venture Capital also made a significant personal account investment into Chess.com (www.chess.com). Chess.com is the largest chess playing online community in the world with more than 11 million registered users.