Lev Binzumovich Leviev

Lev Binzumovich Leviev
Born Lev Binzumovich Leviev
June 22, 1984 (1984-06-22) (age 33)
Volgograd, Soviet Union
Occupation Businessman, investor
Known for co-founder of the VK.com
Net worth Steady US $ 218 million (est.)
(2012)[1]

Lev Binzumovich Leviev (born June 22, 1984, Volgograd) is a Russian-Israeli Internet entrepreneur and investor, co-founder of Russia's largest social network VK.com (originally VKontakte), Vaizra Capital investment fund, and Selectel network data centres.[2]

Biography

Lev Leviev grew up in a family of a Volgograd businessman and went to school in Herzliya, Israel, where he met his future business partner Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, son of oligarch Mikhael Mirilashvili. In 2006, he earned a bachelor's degree in Finance and Accounting at McGill University in Canada and worked at Ernst & Young.[2][3]

From January 2007 to April 2012, Leviev acted as Executive Director of VK. Starting from 2012, as Managing Partner of Vaizra Capital Russia investment fund. In September 2014, he was also appointed CEO of Selectel.

At the end of 2012, Hopes&Fears assessed Leviev's fortune at $218 million.[1]

Married.[1]

VK

In 2006, Lev Leviev and Vyacheslav Mirilashvili mentioned the increasingly popular foreign social network Facebook to Pavel Durov.[4] To establish VKontakte, Lev and Vyacheslav invested tens of thousands of dollars borrowed from Mirilashvili Sr.[4] Leviev's share amounted at 10%. Since the network's establishment and until April 2012, he acted as Executive Director of VKontakte.[2]

Yuri Milner's Digital Sky Technologies Fund was to become the first outside investor, having acquired a quarter of the social network's shares in 2007 to later transfer them to the balance of Mail.Ru Group.[4] In late 2010, Mail.Ru Group increased its share in VK by 7.5% – from 24.99% to 32.49%. The deal amounted at $112.5 million, with the entire company being assessed at $1.5 billion.[5] Additionally, the company got an option to buy another 7.5% of the social network in 2011. CEO of Mail.ru, Dmitry Grishin, negotiated takeover by assessing the entire social network at $2 billion. Leviev and Mirilashvili agreed to exchange their share in the amount of 55.5% for the shares of Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga; however, Durov spoke sharply against the deal.[6][7] In July 2011, the shareholders exercised their option, based on last year's assessment of the company at $1.5 billion. The general share of partners dropped to 48.01%, of which the share of Leviev, according to various sources, was in the range from 6% to 8%.[8]

Having discovered about the negotiations of the co-founders with Alisher Usmanov in March 2012, the principal owner of Mail.Ru Group, Durov, removed their profiles – id3 and id4 – and subsequently received the management pack of Mail.ru from Usmanov himself.[8] In late May, it was announced that VK indefinitely refused IPO, although the company had been working on the release of NASDAQ since the mid-2011. Leviev and Mirilashvili were planning to withdraw from VK upon its assessment at $3 billion.[6] In April 2013, United Capital Partners investment fund managed by Ilya Shcherbovich paid more than $1bn for their share.[5] Thus, Leviev was able to get $125–166 million.[3] The next conflict of shares resulted in UCP considering Lev Leviev as a potential CEO.[9]

Selectel

In 2007, Lev Leviev and Vyacheslav Mirilashvili set up Selectel and established a data centre to meet the demands of VK in terms of data processing and storage.[10] The social network fully adopted it by 2009, and, prior to running its own data centre in 2012, depended on a single service provider. This allowed Selectel to become a large company with a 11% share in the data centre market according to the number of server racks at the end of 2011.[1]

In September 2014, Lev Leviev was appointed CEO, combining it with the role of Managing Partner at Vaizra Capital.[11]

As to 2015, the company owns six data centres, five in St. Petersburg and its region as well as one in Moscow. In May 2014, it was announced that Selectel would be investing 1 billion roubles in the construction of an industrial park in the Moscow district of St. Petersburg, including a data centre as well as office and warehouse spaces. It is expected that residents of the industrial park will include some of the projects financed by the partners at different times.[12]

Investments

In 2010, Leviev and Vyacheslav Mirilashvili created a venture fund entitled Vaizra Capital with offices in New York City, Herzliya, and St. Petersburg to invest in technological companies at all stages of development.[13] Since 2012, Leviev has been the managing partner of the Russian Fund Vaizra Capital Russia,[2] which has invested in a number of projects: Coub video hosting,[14] hotel reservation platform Ostrovok.ru,[15] Committee Publishing House (including business and start-ups media VC.ru, Tjournal social platform, and Spark start-ups community), online web consultant Livetex, and community for extreme sport lovers Riders. In July 2014, the partners joined all their Russian assets, including Selectel, in one fund.[16] At the end of 2014, the fund portfolio included about 30 projects.[13]

In addition, the partners have invested in a number of companies: Penza developer of games for social networks Tortuga, TV channel in public transport modes in St. Petersburg First Popular TV (Passenger TV Ltd.), telecom provider Amsterdamtelekom Ltd., Krasnodar game developer for PCs and smartphones Ino-Co Plus Ltd., St. Petersburg provider of network and server equipment OKTA (Tekno-Okta Ltd.), and others.[12]

In August 2014, Leviev announced a private investment in the amount of 500,000 euro in a joint start-up along with Boaz Behar – an API-platform for bitcoin developers BlockTrail.[17]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Rating the Best Russian Young Entrepreneurs" (in Russian). Hopes&Fears. 2012-11-22. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Lev Leviev runs Selectel as CEO" (in Russian). CNews.ru. 2014-09-24. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  3. 1 2 Joshua Yaffa (2013-08-01). "Is Pavel Durov, Russia's Zuckerberg, a Kremlin Target?". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  4. 1 2 3 Anna Bessonova (2011-07-18). "The Story And Plans Of Vkontakte Told By Founder And CEO". Arctic Startup. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  5. 1 2 Irina Reznik. Ilya Khrennikov (2013-04-18). "Usmanov Plan to Control VKontakte Said to Be Rebuffed by UCP". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  6. 1 2 Kevin Rothrock (2013-04-30). "Pavel Durov, Russia's Zuckerberg, Fights for Control of His Creation". Global Voices. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  7. ↑ Adrien Henni, East-West Digital News (2014-09-21). "How Vkontakte and Mail.ru overcame lawsuits, drama, and intrigue to reach a happy ending". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  8. 1 2 Yevgeny Trifonov (2014-07-12). "Russia’s Zuckerberg loses his Facebook". Russia Beyond The Headlines. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  9. ↑ James Bradshaw (2014-07-12). "A Russian social network tale: Censorship and a CEO on the run". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  10. ↑ "VKontakte's annual revenue rises, but profits fall". Rusbase.com. 2013-04-29. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  11. ↑ "The co-founder of Vkontakte headed business data centers". LatestNewsResources. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  12. 1 2 "Vkontakte cofounders building technopark in St. Petersburg". East-West Digital News. 2014-06-13. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  13. 1 2 "Vaizra Investments". Techcrunch. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  14. ↑ Nadia Beard (2014-07-29). "Russian video app Coub raises $2.5m investment". The Calvert Journal. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  15. ↑ Mike Butcher (2014-06-18). "Ostrovok Raises New $12M Series C Round To Expand Outside Russia". Techcrunch. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  16. ↑ "Online communication tool developer Livetex obtains $4 million from Vaizra Capital". East-West Digital News. 2014-07-09. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  17. ↑ Joon Ian Wong (2014-08-18). "Russian Tech Magnate's First Bitcoin Project Launches in Beta". CoinDesk.com. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
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