Nov 23, 2021

By East-West Digital News / November 22, 2021 November 23, 2021 In the past few months, Russian Internet major VK ( previously Mail.ru Group ) demonstrated a strong appetite for online education — both in Russia and abroad. In August the group, partnering with Alexander Galitsky, integrated its properties Skillbox and GeekBrains into a holding called Skillbox Limited. In October, VK completed the move with the integration of SkillFactory, a data science education startup in which it  invested in 2020 . VK also took control of Brazilian company Mentorama (buying a 90% stake) and became a shareholder of Russian company Umschool (25% stake). The former is an online school for such subjects as programming, design and marketing); the latter helps pupils prepare their high school exams. VK put 1.66 billion rubles ($22 million at the current exchange rate) in these transactions, according to corporate statements cited in the media. Last week, Uchi Group — Russia’s leading online education platform for school pupils, in which VK  acquired a minority stake  in late 2020 — acquired YaKlass entirely. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. This platform generates individualized home assignments for pupils with remote exchanges with teachers. YaKlass claims to serve 12 million kids from some 50,000 schools in Russia as well as Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Germany, India, Kazakhstan and other countries, according to media reports. YaKlass raised significant amounts of funding soon after its creation,  including from Almaz Capital in 2014   In 2020, the company generated 267 million rubles in revenue (up 262% from 2019) and 98 million rubles in net profit (respectively, $3.7 million and $1.3 million at the average exchange rate of the year)