iAppContest is the first competition in Eastern Europe between iPhone developers. The contest will be running in Ukraine for 2 months from April 16 to June 16. Results will be announced on a stage during the Final Event, on Saturday June 19th, Kiev, Ukraine.

We are expecting hundreds apps to be submitted to the Contest, 30 apps will be chosen out of categories, and then our USA-Ukrainian Jury will vote and pick the best three. Winners will be rewarded by a trip to the Silicon Valley where they will pitch, market their product, find partners, investors, and opportunities to grow. The uniqueness of the situation: iPhone is officially not available in Ukraine yet, but the development movement is big. For most Ukrainian developers experiencing the technological heart of the world, Silicon Valley, remains only a dream, with your support will can make it a reality.

GameLand Network, a Russian companies which holds the rights for the Russian television channel Gameland TV, has sold a minority stake to the Japanese venture fund UMJ Russia Fund, as Pasha Romanovsky from Game Network told to Vedomosti. The amount of the investment was not disclosed but consultants near the transaction said it is around $ 3 million for the 30% of the company capital.

After this operation, the Russian channel will also distribute Japanese contents to the Russian audience. Mr. Otsubo, from UJM, reported his interest for the Russian game market and believes that Gameland TV is successful multimedia project, in a country where the Internet penetration is growing rapidly and the Japanese pop culture (video games, anime, manga and music) is very popular among Russian youngs.

Gameland TV was launched in February 2008 and its revenue was estimated in $ 1 million for the year 2009. UMJ Russia Fund was established by United Managers Japan Inc. in June 2007.

Online game “Happy Farmer” as collected a record of $ 20 million during just one year from its launch in Russia.
This also means that the social networks are learning to how make money. Around half of the $ 20 million were brought by the social site VKontakte.

“Happy Farmer” was launched in April last year, through the social network “Vkontakte” and since then has brought about $ 20 million in revenue, as told by Alex Kostarev, founder of I-Jet, which has published the game. “Happy Farmer”, according to Kostarev, was developed by the Chinese company Elex. I-Jet has licensed the game in Russia.

“Happy Farmer” gives players the possibility to grow plants and animals in their own virtual farms. The game is for free, and users can also buy additional features from Vkontakte.ru (by sending a sms or using electronic money transfer systems). The $ 20 million are divided between the social networks, the publisher and the developer.

In 2010, the Russian market of games for social networks will reach about $ 100 million, as predicted by Mail.ru.

In Ukraine over the last year has increased the number of Internet users making online payments. The head of the Internet auction Kopeikoff.com, Artyom Yaremchuk, said that during the first months of the service in Ukraine, more than half of the payments were done via SMS. 20% were done though bank and only 25% were done online.

A year later, 70% of all the payments were done with the help of electronic systems like Portmone, Liqpay and Webmoney, and 20% through terminals. Payments via SMS have been dramatically reduced.
Kopeikoff’s managers explain that this trend is connected to two main factors. On one side, the Internet culture is rapidly growing in Ukraine and on the other side, the online shoppers are more confident on the online payment systems.

Today Kopeikoff is one of the most popular Scandinavian auctions in Ukraine. It was launched just a year ago.

For the first time in the history of technology industry, a delegation of 20 leading partners from Silicon Valley based Venture Capital firms will visit Russia. Rusnano and AmBAR (American Business Association of Russian professionals) will arrange the visit and meeting in Moscow on May 25-27.

The trip wants to provide the delegates with an opportunity to learn about Russia, meet with Russian technology companies and leaders, explore the emerging scene of the Russian start-ups. Moreover, the US delegates will also have the chance to meet with key government officials, local investors and entrepreneurs.
The list of participating VC firms includes: Bessemer Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, Sofinnova Ventures, JK&B Capital, Emergence Capital, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Domain Associates, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (law firm), Asset Management Company, Alloy Ventures, EDVenture, Silicon Valley Bank, Greylock Partners, Accel Partners, Siguler Guff & Company, Index Ventures, US Venture Partners, Almaz Capital Partners, Draper, Fisher & Jurvetson, Wellington Partners, Charles River Ventures.

More information are available on www.vctriptorussia.com

The Russian venture capital firm Parta Group has completed a $10 million second round investment in the online video game developer Playnatic Entertainment. For Parta Group the total investment into the company at this time is $30 million.

Playnatic Entertainment is a young, dynamically growing company engaged in development, publication and localization of on-line games and web-projects. Playnatic Entertainment was founded in December 2008 by Parta Group and the core team includes professionals with extensive experience in successful projects in the game development area. The company portfolio includes CyberSport Online, Elements of War, KillSkill and Moscow 3000.

Yandex has launched a new version of Yandex.Bar toolbar with integrated module allowing to detect the location of the user with the accuracy up to 150 meters. To implement this function and provide the same option in mobile version of Yandex.Maps, Yandex used the technology of AlterGeo company.

AlterGeo, earlier named Wi2Geo – a Russian Startup, developed a technology of hybrid positioning based on strength of Wi-Fi signals. The main advantage of this technology – it allows to determine the location of a person even in the zones where GPS signal is not available.

AlterGeo develops both its own internet projects and offers b2b solutions. With help of AlterGeo’s technology, web site developers can determine the users’ location by IP address, provide additional services based on geo location, and show advertising, regarding the location of users. This technology is already used by a number of Russian companies, including the largest blog platform Livejournal.com.

AlterGeo was founded in 2008. The same year it was financially backed by the Russian seed fund Addventure.to. In March 2009 Altergeo got a round B of investment from Kite Ventures.

On the 19th of December a new free Iphone application called AlterGeo was launched. This application allows you to define your position on a map and shows all the places you might need, for example banks, shops and cafes. Like in any other network, users can write opinions about places they visit, find each other and get new acquaintances. The special «mark» function allows you to inform others, where are you at the moment. It is a kind of geographical status.

There are lots of projects with same idea in Russian web, like social networks Mirtesen.ru and iMobbit, that provide the same opportunities, but only AlterGeo allows to watch through camera and see all marks, friends and places that are situated near you.

Denis Alaev, the co-founder, says that they will overcome their competitors by developing applications for Android, Nokia N-Series, WM 6.1. Plans for the first year are to get more then 1 million users and push application in Europe.

AlterGeo was developed by Russian startup Wi2Geo.

Cheap-and-Daily, already covered by us last month, is web-shop that offers each day one item at the lowest possible price in limited quantities. It was launched on the 15th of December and yesterday appreared the first copy – onedayshop.ru. It has the same business model as CnD as well as the look.

I was interested to know if the Woot.com business model actually works in Russia and I contacted CnD CEO Elena Masolova. By her words, they are selling unpredictable amount of items per day. If they manage to target the current audience of CnD, they minimum can sell 30 items and up to 120. Profit is 5-30 dollars per each sale. So the business model actually works, though CnD is far from the “Woot” success.

Business incubator HSE-inc , founded by the Higher School of Economics announced the second “Student startup of ther year” award. The winner will get honor, press coverage and $ 5000 to invest in Google Adwords account. Every successful startup can take part and try to win the following nominations:

1. Best product and service
2. Best technology
3. Best business model
4. Best marketing campaign
5. Best startup

The ceremony will be held in Moscow on the 29th of January.

The Higher School of Economics or HSE is the first university that started to support startups in Russia in big scale by organizing contests, conferences, free seminars and launching incubator.