VimpelCom received 10.15% of the developer of commercial technology Briskly

As Forbes reports, citing a source, the Beeline venture fund has invested $1.7 million in the creator of “smart refrigerators.” The funds will be used to launch mass production of coffee machines. Briskly founder Gleb Kharitonov clarified that the company, taking into account the new round, raised 700 million rubles (about $7.6 million at the current exchange rate – Kharitonov’s words are quoted in VimpelCom’s press release). Before the new round, the founder spoke of an investment of $5.5 million.

Ilya Rybalkin and Maxim Poletaev also participated in the round, the former’s share increased from 11.15% to 11.44%, and the latter’s decreased from 38.7% to 36.4%. The share of founder Gleb Kharitonov after the round decreased from 36.98% to 31%. In addition, Vadim Malyshko reduced his share from 13.08% to 10.96% after increasing the authorized capital by 19.8%.

Kharitonov, whose words are quoted in Beeline’s press release, says that cooperation with the Hive Foundation is not only financial support for project development, but also access to management know-how, contacts and networking. The company plans to strengthen its position in the market, rapidly develop technology and launch new types of equipment.

Hive was interested in combining retail software with rapidly growing usage metrics.

Briskly LLC’s revenue in 2023 increased 4.4 times to 231.8 million rubles, net profit amounted to 325.7 million rubles (in 2022 the company had a loss of 54.7 million rubles).

• Briskly was launched in 2018 and the following year raised two rounds of investment totalling $370,000. In 2020, the project raised another $2 million to fund its first project in Europe.
• Briskly has launched more than 15 thousand units of smart equipment, including micromarkets – “smart refrigerators” without sellers, replacing vending machines. More than 3,000 entrepreneurs in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus work on the Briskly platform, and more than 8 million purchases worth about 1.5 billion rubles have been made on the B-Pay app.
• At the end of 2023, Briskly decided to abandon its parent structure in Cyprus and fully relocate to Russia. Experts believe that this step indicates Briskly’s orientation towards the domestic market and CIS countries. The company is likely to raise funds in Russia and look for investors in “friendly” countries, RB.RU reported in February.
• Briskly develops software for self-service retail and produces equipment for self-service stores at its own plant in Vyborg. The core of the service is the B-Pay application, which customers use to scan barcodes on products and pay for their purchases on their smartphone.
• On February 8, Andrei Oreshko, a native of Sberbank, became the CEO of the startup, and in May, its founder, Gleb Kharitonov, became the company’s CEO again.

• In 2023-2024, the Hive venture fund invested in marketing startup Eshopmedia, media planning automation platform Tamburin, pricing system KeepRise, and online children’s education platform Novator Kids.