Malina VC increased its stake in the Darkstore at Home mini-store network to 10.83%

“During this year we increased our participation to implement vertical growth strategies. We bought shares of the Samolet group of companies (2.09%), business angels Igor Shiyanov (2.43%) and Timur Myaldzin (1.05%),” Pronin added.

• As reported by RB.RU, Malina VC bought a stake in Shiyanov in October and Samolet Plus in September 2024. Shiyanov is a co-owner of the Russian legal entity Master Delivery and also served as CEO of this company until 2023. Timur Myaldzin is the former director of investment activities at Master Delivery.

Also in December, business angel Sergei Khaidapov increased his stake in Ekom Global (first entered capital in February 2024), bought 0.59% from Artem Utenov (also invested during the February round) and became owner of 1.18% in the company. The amount of the transactions is not disclosed.

As Kirill Chekanov, founder and director of Darkstore at Home, explained to RB.RU, in November 2024 the company increased its revenue by 2.7 times compared to November 2023. In two years, monthly revenue increased by 6.8 times.

Over the course of the year, Darkstore at Home expanded its geographic presence from 33 to 88 cities, increased the number of warehouses from 27 to 1,507, launched a joint product with Russian Post called Seller+ and the possibility of express delivery for Wildberries sellers, said the director. Actual income in 2023 amounted to 17.9 million rubles, Kirill Chekanov added.

• In August 2022, Darkstore at Home raised 9 million rubles from the Samolet group of companies, as well as a group of private investors, including Myaldzin and Shiyanov. At the time, the company’s value was estimated at $1.2 million. The company planned to use the money to expand its warehouse infrastructure and develop a network of partners in Russia.
• In February and July 2024, Darkstore at Home raised 50 million rubles in two tranches. The February one was attended by the venture fund 2FISH Capitals and a group of private investors: together they invested 34 million rubles (the company’s valuation was 160 million rubles). In the second, the Malina VC fund (10 million rubles) and a syndicate of private investors (6 million rubles) for a total amount of 16 million rubles. According to the results of the second round, the company’s valuation exceeded 190 million rubles, writes RB.RU. The company will use the funds raised during the round to develop partnership projects with marketplaces, expand offline infrastructure of warehouses and online services for customer-sellers.

The main owners of Darkstore at Home are Kirill Chekanov and Grigory Tareev: each owns 29.2% of the company. Another 10.83% is owned by Malina MC and 10.4% is owned by 2FISH Capitals. In addition, 2.3% belongs to Vladimir Urbansky and 2.3% to Alexey Dmitriev. The rest of the company is distributed between legal entities and individuals, the participation of each is less than 2%.