Rambler-Fund invested into e-commerce service Ichiba.ru

Rambler-Fund, the investment division of the united company of Afisha and Rambler, has invested into the e-commerce project Ichiba.ru, innovation and venture news source UNOVA reports.

Amount of investment into Ichiba.ru has yet to be disclosed.

Ichiba.ru is the platform for electronic trade of goods, uniting main participants of the e-commerce market: sellers, developers, web-publishers, service companies. The project was launched in April 2011. As of now, 3.5 million goods from over 400 sellers from all over Russia have been placed at Ichiba.ru.

“The united company deems the electronic commerce direction as the key one, strategic one in its operations. Specifically, we develop Rambler-Kassa, the network service of distributing movie theater tickets,” the company representative Vladislav Kreynin said.

“The e-commerce segment is thoroughly tracked by the experts of our Rambler-Fund that plans to finance up to ten perspective projects per year. Total amount of investment in these projects will top $1m,” he added.

Anton Terekhov, the new director for electronic commerce in the company, is experienced in Internet-projects. In different years he headed marketing direction in the companies ADV and Rambler, Internet-store Ozon.ru, tourism operator TUI Russia/CIS. In the last five years Mr. Terekhov has been the founder and general director of the agency Five birds, the multi-profile supplier of solutions in the e-commerce sector.

In the new position he will be responsible for the strategy and development of all e-commerce brands of the united company, including Price.ru, Rambler-Kassa, Rambler-Avia.

Experts not that the e-commerce sector in the recent time has become one of the most attractive for investors, and Russia here is no exclusion. One of the largest deals of last year was raising $12m second-round investment by the shoe Internet-store Sapato. Most of the funding was provided by the investment fund Intel Capital.

Among other participants in that round were previous Sapato investors – Direct Group (a former shareholder in Ozon), eVenture Capital Partners and Kinnevik. The Internet store then raised a total of $20m investment.