The Age of Flying Cars Is Finally Here
The Age of Flying Cars Is Finally Here
If you’ve been missing a weekly dose of the latest tech headlines and summaries of notable VC deals involving Russian startups, I have some good news: I’m back.
As I’m expanding my team, I’m also looking for more feedback on how we can make the Russian Tech News newsletter more useful for you. All you have to do is fill out this super-short survey here.
In this week’s edition, you’ll find the latest headlines, deals to watch, and a closer look at ambitious startups looking to bring in a new era of AIR MOBILITY.
As before, we will focus our coverage on stories and innovative solutions moving global science and tech breakthroughs forward, not political obstacles or rhetoric holding everyone back.
If you have tips on stories below or comments, drop me a line at Daria@russiantechnews.com.
- Daria
LATEST HEADLINES
YANDEX WATCH
> Yandex entered the scooter market. Earlier this month, Yandex unveiled its scooter rental offering in three of Moscow’s neighborhoods. There are already several established players in this market, and Yandex says they’ve learned from these competitors how to make their scooter models safer and more energy-efficient.
[Source: The Bell]
> GrubHub partners with Yandex to deliver food at U.S. colleges. A lot more American college students are about to learn about Yandex, which partnered with GrubHub to use its food delivery robots at over 250 campuses.
[Source: Tech Crunch]
> No, thanks: Yandex decided not to buy online fashion retailer KupiVIP. On Friday, Russia’s tech giant said Yandex.Market “will not exercise its option to buy the KupiVIP group." It’s still looking at opportunities in the online fashion market.
[Source: Reuters]
FOOD TECH
> Russian scientists showed test results that could produce hypoallergenic milk. Ernst Federal Science Center for Animal Husbandry, Skoltech and Moscow State University used gene-editing technology together with somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), which “has broad prospects for solving problems associated with creating new genotypes” according to their published study.
[Source: Tech Times]
CLIMATE CHANGE
> Russian traveler Fyodor Konyukhov launched the Arctic expedition on July 11, planning to spend 10 days at a drifting polar station as a part of the Clean Arctic Movement. The voyage will include study of microplastic pollution.
[Source: TASS]
> John Kerry travels to Moscow for climate change talks. The environment is emerging as one of the few topics for collaboration between the United States and Russia, with John Kerry making the trip to Russia this week to discuss climate change. He singled out the developments in the Arctic as one of the warning signs and examples of the urgency to act.
[Source: Reuters]
NOTABLE DEALS
> De-Fi startup Zerion raised $8.2 million in Series A funding. The team’s mission is to build an “all-inclusive portal to the world of DeFi. ”The company has processed over $600 million in transactions since the start of the year and has over 200,000 monthly active users.
“Back in 2016, Alexey Bashlykov (CTO), Vadim Koleoshkin (COO) and I simply didn’t have easy access to investing opportunities because of where we were born. Like countless others all over the world, crypto was our only option,” said CEO Evgeny Yurtaev. “This milestone marks a new chapter on our path to a better financial world.”
[Source: Zerion]
> Wowworks, an on-demand recruitment platform based in Moscow, raised $3.6 million from VK co-founder Lev Leviev’s LVL1 fund, DV Capital and Addventure.
The platform was founded in 2015 and now has 40,000 workers registered across Russia, performing tasks like electrical work, painting and AC maintenance for clients that include Sberbank, Svyaznoy and Adidas. Wowworks also operates in Germany, Austria, Poland and Hungary, and plans to expand to India and Southeast Asia in the future.
[Source: RB]
> Baring Vostok bought a 12% stake in clothing brand 12 Storeez from Marina Golomazdina, one of the founders. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed. According to sources quoted by TheBell, the company is valued around 2.7 billion rubles, implying a 330 million rubles value for the transaction. The 12 Storeez chain was founded in 2014 in Yekaterinburg and operates 35 stores. It had revenue of 3 billion rubles in 2020.
[Source: TheBell]
> Agri.club, an ag-tech marketplace that connects input suppliers and grain buyers with farmers using the latest digital commerce and fintech solutions, raised $5 million from Rabo Frontier Ventures (RFV), Greek VC fund VentureFriends, and Raiffeisen Group’s corporate VC fund Elevator Ventures.
The company was founded by Egor Kirin in Russia in 2018 and expanded to North America following a $1.5m round in 2020. It works with 19 000 farmers and claims a turnover of $40m in 2020.
[Source: RB]
> Sistema SmartTech invested 200 million rubles for a 18.6% stake in Moscow-based express delivery service Checkbox. The company was founded by Kirill Evdakov, Vladimir Ostapenko and Roman Levitsky in 2019, and uses machine learning routing algorithms to enable a faster and more cost-effective service. It operates in Moscow and St. Petersburg and works with more than 2,000 online stores.
[Source: Vedomosti]
> Meditation app Mo raised $1m from Dmitry Grishin (the co-founder of Mail.ru Group) and other business angels. The app claims to help 1,100,000 users lower their stress level and get sound and restful sleep by providing them with meditations and... bedtime stories. A monthly subscription costs 299 rubles, and the company also markets its app to employers who want to make sure their workers fall asleep in their beds and not at work.
[Source: VC.ru]
IN FOCUS
The Age of Flying Cars, Bikes and Air Taxis Is Finally Here
The idea of flying vehicles has captivated science fiction writers for decades, but a series of latest startups are finally making these technologies a reality.
When imagining what 2014 would look like, Russian-born American science fiction writer Isaac Asimov predicted levitating cars in his 1964 essay for The New York Times.
“Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with ‘Robot-brains’ vehicles that can be set for particular destinations and that will then proceed there without interference by the slow reflexes of a human driver,” he wrote. “I suspect one of the major attractions of the 2014 fair will be rides on small roboticized cars which will maneuver in crowds at the two-foot level, neatly and automatically avoiding each other.”
Six years after Asimov’s prediction, and we’re still on a quest for the perfect “robot-brains” that will allow vehicles to levitate safely at the two-foot level or higher.
While these ambitions are not limited to Russia, a handful of Russian companies have recently captured global headlines and shared the progress they’ve been making.
If they’re successful, we’re soon going to see more tests and trials of hover bikes and air taxis -- all of which signal a new era of air mobility.
Cyclocar
Earlier this year, Cylocar, which is developed by the Institute of Thermophysics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Foundation of Research, shared details of its latest prototypes. The company has conducted a test flight of a 130-pounds prototype and is aiming to start production by 2024.
Potential applications may include “civilian and military use, including urban air mobility, search and rescue, police work, fire-fighting, tourism, surveying, battlefield transport and more,” according to Inceptive Mind.
You can watch the whole video here, which shows a simulation more akin to a video game than a consumer-facing product.
Hoversurf
Hoversurf, a Moscow-based mobility startup that has produced prototypes of drone taxis and hover bikes. It is also aiming to offer flight tests and flying software, according to the company’s investor materials.
Dubai police have been testing these hover bikes for them, going up to 20 feet in the air -- above Asimov’s 1964 dreams.
Still, these are early days for the levitating transportation industry.
“Interested investors should understand that this is a new industry and there are many barriers to a short term ROI exist,” the company notes.
There are still a range of technologies and approaches to how these could work on a consumer or industrial level. There are companies like U.S.-based Terrafugia that are taking a personal transportation approach to air transport, combining land and air travel for individual consumer use. Startups working in Russia appear to aim for more industrial or military applications.
While the number of international startups working on air mobility is higher than ever, the reality of navigating all the technical challenges of manufacturing a successful prototype as well as international regulations ensure that all these startups will remain in the high-risk realm. Even Elon Musk is in the skeptics’ camp when it comes to flying cars.
"Even in autopilot, and even if you've got redundant motors and blades, you've still gone from near-zero chance of something falling on your head to something greater than that," he has said.