Lev Binzumovich Leviev

For the Uzbek-born Israeli diamond industry magnate, see Lev Avnerovich Leviev.

Lev Binzumovich Leviev
Born
Lev Binzumovich Leviev

June 22, 1984 (1984-06-22) (age 40)
Volgograd, Soviet Union
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, investor
Known forco-founder of VK.com and Selectel

Lev Binzumovich Leviev (born June 22, 1984) is a Russian entrepreneur and investor, founder of international venture capital firm LVL1,[1] co-founder of Russia's largest social network VK.com (originally VKontakte) and the Selectel data center network.[2]

Early life and education

Leviev was born in Volgograd. He attended the American school in Herzliya, Israel, where he met his future business partner Vyacheslav Mirilashvili. In 2006, he earned a bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance and Accounting at McGill University in Canada, where he graduated with honors.[2][3]

He is married.[4]

Early career

VK.com

Main article: VK (social networking)

In 2006, he co-founded VK.com with his friends, Yitzchak Mirilashvili and Pavel Durov.[5]

Leviev and Vyacheslav invested tens of thousands of dollars in the project. The money was borrowed from Mirilashvili-Sr.[5] Leviev's share was 10%. From the moment of founding the company until 2012, he was the Chief Operating Officer of VK.com.[2]

Yuri Milner's Digital Sky Technologies fund was the company's first external investor. He bought a quarter of the network in 2007 and later merged DST's shareholdings into the Mail.Ru Group.[5] At the end of 2010, the holding increased its VK.com ownership stake by 7.5% - from 24.99% to 32.49%. Mail.ru Group secured the option to buy another 7.5% of VK.com in 2011.

In July 2011, Mail.ru exercised the option and increased its shareholding to 39.99% which reduced the total share of the partners from 55.5% to 48.01% making Leviev's share between 6% or 8%, according to various sources.[6]

Having learned about negotiations between his fellow co-founders and Alisher Usmanov in March 2012, Durov deleted their profiles id3 and id4. Leviev and Mirilashvili were planning to exit VK.com via an IPO for $3 bln, but at the end of March, Durov announced that the social network would not IPO for an undefined period.[7]

In April 2013, Ilya Sherbovich's investment fund, United Capital Partners, paid an estimated $840 mln for the partner's share.[8] Assuming a valuation of $1.75 bln for the entire network, Leviev would have received $105–140 mln.

During the conflict between UCP and Pavel Durov, the fund considered Leviev as a potential CEO of VK.com.[9]

Selectel

Main article: Selectel

In 2007, Leviev and Vyacheslav Mirilashvili founded the Selectel data center network to provide for VK.com’s needs in processing and storing servers.[10]

By 2009, VK.com’s full server capacity was being managed by Selectel. In 2012, VK.com opened its own data center, but it still remains a client of Selectel.[4]

After selling his VK.com shares in September 2014, Leviev assumed the role of CEO at Selectel.

In May 2014, it was reported that Selectel was investing ₽1 bln in a technopark in Saint Petersburg that would include a data center, offices and warehouses.[11]

By the end of 2016, Selectel was ranked the fourth largest IaaS provider for public and hybrid cloud in Russia (based on revenue).[12]

By 2017, the company was one of the largest IaaS providers in Russia, with a market share of 7%.[13] At the end of 2017, Leviev stepped down from the CEO position, while remaining the Chairman of the board of directors.

Btc.com

In 2014, Leviev co-founded BlockTrail with his long time friend, Boaz Bechar. Leviev set up the holding company BlockCorp which made an initial investment of €500,000 in the BlockTrail project. The company developed a blockchain explorer, Bitcoin transaction analytics tools and multi-platform Bitcoin wallets.[14]

In 2016, the project was bought by Bitmain, a Chinese producer of equipment for mining Bitcoins, and renamed BTC Wallet (btc.com).

Investments

Current investments

In 2012, Leviev founded LVL1 Group, which primarily focuses on venture capital investments in technology companies, as well as real estate and bitcoin. Its venture portfolio consists of more than forty international companies in mobility tech, food tech, gaming, health tech and more, including Rapyd fintech company, Emerging Travel Group, Flink, Webflow, Fnatic and ResQ.[15]

Leviev has invested in international projects, such as:

In 2019, LVL1 Group led a $19 million fundraising for Fnatic, a global eSports organization, joined by UK VC firm Beringea, Hong Kong-based BlackPine, London-based Unbound, and Joi Ito, Head of MIT Media Lab. Leviev joined Fnatic's Board.[23][24]

Other Significant Investments

Investments include:

DST Global

Leviev is an investor in several of Yuri Milner's DST Global venture funds.

DST Global II acquired shares of Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Spotify, Alibaba and Xiaomi.[28]

Among the most publicized investments of DST Global IV are Ola Cabs, an Indian car-hailing service,[29] Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce platform,[30] and Slack, a corporate communications platform.[31]

References

  1. ^ "LVL1". LVL1. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c "Lev Leviev runs Selectel as CEO" (in Russian). CNews.ru. September 24, 2014. Archived from the original on September 25, 2014. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
  3. ^ Joshua Yaffa (August 1, 2013). "Is Pavel Durov, Russia's Zuckerberg, a Kremlin Target?". Bloomberg. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
  4. ^ a b "Rating the Best Russian Young Entrepreneurs" (in Russian). Hopes&Fears. November 22, 2012. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
  5. ^ a b c Anna Bessonova (July 18, 2011). "The Story And Plans Of Vkontakte Told By Founder And CEO". Arctic Startup. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
  6. ^ Yevgeny Trifonov (July 12, 2014). "Russia's Zuckerberg loses his Facebook". Russia Beyond The Headlines. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  7. ^ Kevin Rothrock (April 30, 2013). "Pavel Durov, Russia's Zuckerberg, Fights for Control of His Creation". Global Voices. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  8. ^ Irina Reznik. Ilya Khrennikov (April 18, 2013). "Usmanov Plan to Control VKontakte Said to Be Rebuffed by UCP". Bloomberg. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
  9. ^ James Bradshaw (July 12, 2014). "A Russian social network tale: Censorship and a CEO on the run". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
  10. ^ "VKontakte's annual revenue rises, but profits fall". Rusbase.com. April 29, 2013. Archived from the original on April 20, 2015. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
  11. ^ "Vkontakte cofounders building technopark in St. Petersburg". East-West Digital News. June 13, 2014. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  12. ^ Nosov, Nicholay (April 17, 2018). "OpenStack: life after the hype". iksmedia.ru (in Russian). JSC «IKS-media». Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  13. ^ Zhuravleva, Alena (June 20, 2018). "Clouds grow due to SaaS". MSKIT (in Russian). Publishing house «Regional PR group». Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  14. ^ Butcher, Mike (July 29, 2014). "BlockTrail Secures Cash For Its Bitcoin Transactions Analysis Platform". Oath Tech Network. Oath Inc. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  15. ^ "Can tech startups still fundraise successfully in 2022?". www.intellinews.com. June 14, 2022. Retrieved June 22, 2022.
  16. ^ "Mirilashvili and Leviev have sold 48% of Vkontakte, the Fund United Capital Partners". Roem.ru. JSC «Roem». April 17, 2013. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  17. ^ "Aristocrat Leisure to acquire 100% of Plarium Global Ltd". Reuters. Thomson Reuters. August 10, 2017. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  18. ^ "Co-founders of VK Leviev and Mirilashvili invested in the development of protection against film piracy". Roem.ru. JSC «Roem». May 6, 2015. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  19. ^ Butcher, Mike (January 14, 2015). "Moovit Raises $50M To Scale Its Public Transit App, Goes Up Against CityMapper". Oath Tech Network. Oath Inc. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  20. ^ "Moovit Raises $50 Million Led by Intel Capital to Expand its Global Urban Mobility Operating System". Moovit. February 21, 2018. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  21. ^ "Can tech startups still fundraise successfully in 2022?". www.intellinews.com. June 14, 2022. Retrieved June 22, 2022.
  22. ^ Фонд Цукерберга купил поисковик Meta у Льва Левиева и других инвесторов [Zuckerberg Foundation bought Meta search engine from Leviev and other investors]. Inc. (in Russian). LLC Publishing Company Board of Directors. January 24, 2017. Retrieved December 18, 2018.
  23. ^ Russ, Hilary (May 1, 2019). "Esports organization Fnatic raises $19 million for big expansion". Reuters. Thomson Reuters. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
  24. ^ Symcox, Jonathan (May 1, 2019). "UK esports start-up Fnatic raises $19M". BusinessCloud Media. HarperJames. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
  25. ^ Nadia Beard (July 29, 2014). "Russian video app Coub raises $2.5m investment". The Calvert Journal. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  26. ^ O'Hear, Steve (July 29, 2014). "Video Re-Mix Startup Coub Raises $2.5 Million From VC Fund Headed Up By VK.com Founders". Oath Tech Network. Oath Inc. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  27. ^ Mike Butcher (November 15, 2018). "Ostrovok Raises New $12M Series C Round To Expand Outside Russia". Techcrunch. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  28. ^ "The former shareholders of VK.com became the shareholders of the two funds of Yuri Milner". Roem.ru (in Russian). JSC «Roem». April 28, 2015. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  29. ^ Sharma, Samidha (February 26, 2015). "DST may invest up to $500m in Ola at $2.5bn valuation". The Times of India. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  30. ^ Sharma, Samidha (September 3, 2018). "Udaan raises $225 million at $1 billion from Yuri Milner's DST, Lightspeed". The Times of India. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  31. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (April 16, 2015). "Used Daily By 750K Workers, Slack Raises $160M, Valuing Collaboration Startup At $2.8B". Oath Tech Network. Oath Inc. Retrieved November 15, 2018.