DST Global invested in competitor OpenAI, Coca-Cola registers trademarks in the Russian Federation again: the main thing on June 14

World

• For the third consecutive year, Apple maintains its leadership in the ranking of the most valuable brands. Its value exceeds one billion dollars. The Nvidia brand rose 18 positions in the top 100, taking sixth place. Its value rose to $201.8 billion, almost three times more than last year.

Investments

• French startup Mistral AI raised €640 million at a valuation of €5.8 billion. The Series B investment round was led by General Catalyst and DST Global.

Business

• The Federal Tax Service suspended transactions on some accounts of blogger Anastasia Ivleeva. The reason is non-payment of a debt worth 11.35 million rubles. The tax office began monitoring Ivleeva’s accounts in May 2023. Then the advertising agency Ivleeva Production LLC, as well as 20 other different individual entrepreneurs and LLCs associated with it, were suspected of tax evasion.
• FAS fined Yandex for distributing advertisements for a dissertation writing service. Previously, a citizen contacted the department with a complaint about an advertisement from the Work 5 organization: this company offered writing services for essays, term papers and dissertations. The advertisement was distributed on the Yandex search engine.
• In early June, the Russian government submitted a bill to the State Duma to reduce compensation for violation of trademark rights. This is possible in the event that the offender has already paid it in a similar case. The rule is necessary to combat the “serial” collection of compensation in favor of copyright holders for the same violation. RB.RU learned that the new measures may encourage infringers to continue illegal use of the brand.
• Coca-Cola, which left the Russian Federation, began the new registration of its trademarks. They belong to classes 32 and 33 of the ICGS: soft drinks and alcoholic beverages, sparkling water, etc.

• Former deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Alexey Uchenov received 25% of the ATM manufacturer BFS. The company purchased foreign ATMs for about 20 years and in 2023 launched the production of domestic ATMs based on the Elbrus processor.

• In June, Russian companies faced delays transporting container cargo from China. You have to wait an average of two weeks to get a free seat on a boat. Due to increased demand, rates for both container rental and transportation itself are increasing. Market participants and experts discussed the causes of the crisis and predicted an increase in tariffs of up to 30% by August.

• The Fura service, which develops an ecosystem of digital products for cargo transportation, announced the appointment of two executives. Alexey Perventsev, who previously worked at Sportmaster, DOM.RF and VTB, became deputy general director. The head of the sales department was Alexandra Zinovkina of the Russian Post.

• Account managers for the SAAS service for marketplace providers Eggheads complained about attempts by the company’s management to deprive them of their regular income and illegal dismissals due to the introduction of AI. The employees sent complaints to the Human Rights Commissioner and the labor inspectorate and threaten general director Denis Dobryakov with legal action. The company itself described the information about mass discontent as “filler.”

Services and technologies

• The American social network for searching and establishing business contacts LinkedIn has launched new functions based on artificial intelligence. For now they are available for Premium subscribers.

• Yandex will develop the direction of unmanned technologies under a separate brand. An application for the trademark “Autonomous transport” has been submitted to Rospatent. Previously, Yandex said it was technically ready to launch mass production of delivery robots.