The international venture fund Runa Capital informed that it has invested $5 million in Dnevnik.ru, company, which is engaged in development of a unified educational platform and a unique electronic network and environment for schoolchildren and their parents. As a tool for efficient and convenient electronic document management, Dnevnik.ru is a unique educational social network that connects students, their parents, and school administrators.
The target of the investment is global expansion of this platform as well as development of a unique cataloging and educational content distribution system.
Alexander Lupachev, head of the Skolkovo investment service, said that its one of the biggest deals registered between the Skolkovo resident and accredited at Skolkovo venture fund.
At Runet segment it will be one of the TOP-10 deals of the year. As he also said, the deal is also important because the investment occurred without any additional grant financing, it’s a purely market deal, which indicates on high quality of the company.Lupachev said.
Launched in 2009, the Dnevnik.ru within three years turned into the most popular educational platform in Russia and Ukraine. At the moment there are more than 21,000 schools and more than 4 million users, who are hooked to this project in Russia and about 10 thousand schools and 1 million users in Ukraine.
The key reason of the popularity of the platform lies in its multitask capabilities. The system comprises three functions at one: distance learning, school document management and a social network.
The basic functional features of the Dnevnik.ru are free of charge for all participants of the educational process. Users are granted access to progress records books and schoolchildren personal academic records diaries, as well as media libraries of educational literature, online trainings for the Unified State Exam, and an opportunity to pass academic competitions for gifted kids, set by major Russian high schools.
Dnevnik.ru will also channel investments of the Runa Capital into development of additional services and mobile applications, as well as version for high schools, and development of a unique system of cataloging and distribution of educational content.
The project is already localized in Ukraine, and in 2012 we plan to launch local versions in Israel, Hungary, Poland, as well as in China, USA, and count on a highly qualified support of the Runa Capital in our expansion on international marketsGabriel Levi, CEO of the Dnevnik.ru said.
Dnevnik.ru resolves an important problem of automation of cooperation between parents, teachers and students and has all chances to turn into a leading new generation educational platform. We have invested in this company as we believe that Dnevnik.ru has created the world’s best educational solution and managed, having connected tens of thousands of schools and millions of users, to turn into the number one platform of this kind in Russia
Dnevnik.ru, headed by Gabriel Levi, managed to bring a stron management team, which has all chances to make project aglobal leader in this segment”, Sergey Belousov, senior partner with the Runa Capital said.
Now we have a goal to reach a target of 100 million users of Dnevnik.ru all over the world and we’ll put in place at maximum all resources and experience of our and our partners’ eco-systems to help Dnevnik.ru to reach a success on international scale.
In 2010 Dnevnik.ru was rewarded with the “RuNet Award” in “Teachers’ internet project” nomination. And in April 2012 Dnevnik.ru received the “World Summit Award” in the “E-Learning&Education” category.
In August 2012 the company became a resident of the Skolkovo innovation foundation. The project was granted a support form the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, regional educational departments. The Dnevnik.ru company is headquartered in St. Petersburg and it has offices in Moscow, Kiev, Bashkotorstan, Volgograd, Astrtakhan, Nizhni Novgorod, Chelyabinsk Yekaterinburg, Khabarovsk regions and in Dagestan.
In 2011 Dnevnik.ru attracted $1.7 million of investments from Prostor Capital fund. The overall investments into the project comprised $6.7 million.
We consider that such a strong investor as Runa Capital will allow us to gain a quality momentum on domestic and international markets on the second stage of this portfolio investment. It is not the first project, in which we invest in cooperation with this fund, and we hope this practice to be continuedsaid Alexei Solovyov, the Prostor Capital executive director.
It’s a free of charge social network of electronic educational document flow, open only to its participants, social network, designed for educational institutions. The system comprises functions of educational process, such as academic records books and diaries) and a social network. Dnevnik.ru was launched in 2009 by Gabriel Levi. As of September 2012, there are more than 21,000 schools and more than 4 million users, who are hooked to this project in Russia and about 10 thousand schools and 1 million users in Ukraine. Its supported by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, regional educational departments.
Runa Capital is an early stage international venture fund, specialized in investments into hi-tech companies. Its investments have contributed creation of companies with assets acceding $ 10 billion. Runa Capital targets startups in the rapid growth tech sectors of cloud computing, virtualisation and mobile/internet applications. Runa Capital selects promising early-stage Russian and CIS-region technology companies, drive and support them in the global market place so that they can compete globally. By now Runa Capital informed about investments into following companies:
Nginx, Ecwid, StopTheHacker, Talkbits, Jelastic, Metabar, Travelmenu, BigTime(r) Software, Capptain, B2B-Center, Infratel и LinguaLeo. The first exit of the fund took place in August 2012, form a British company Thinkgrid.