Lev Binzumovich Leviev

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For other people of the same name, see Lev Leviev.
Lev Binzumovich Leviev
File:Lev Leviev (crop).jpg
Born Lev Binzumovich Leviev
June 22, 1984 (1984-06-22) (age 39)
Volgograd, Soviet Union
Ethnicity Jewish
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 an 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, where he met his future business partner Vyacheslav 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

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Main article: VK (social networking website)

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, 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 IT publication Zuckerberg Calling, Tjournal social platform, and Spark start-up 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

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  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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