On the occasion of the past birthday of Bill Gates, we decided to remind you who you should look up to in business today. Here is the “Magnificent Eight” of billionaires in 2014. Fortune size and inspirational quotes are included.
State:$76 billion
Occupation: IT, investment activity
A country: USA
Quote: “Of course, my children will have a computer. But first they get the books."
The richest man on the planet, multibillionaire William Henry Gates III, in the common people - Bill Gates - yesterday, October 28, celebrated his 59th birthday. He has been leading the international race for the American dream for nearly two decades, apart from a brief hiatus at the end of the last decade when Gates was briefly beaten by the Mexican Carlos Slim.
The person who created modern world, according to the results of 2013, was again on horseback. Behind last year Gates has earned another $9 billion doing nothing special - since February he has been listed as a "technical adviser" to the new head of Microsoft, Satya Nadella.
Main financial activities Bill today is giving money to those in need. His fund for the fight against polio in the third world countries has already allocated about $ 28 billion to these needs. In his free time, the multibillionaire, without further ado, plays bridge and enjoys a successful life.
State:$72 billion
Occupation: telecommunications
A country: Mexico
Quote: “Many people want to change the world for the better for their children. I am trying to change my children for the better so that they serve the world.
The main "offender" of Gates, the Mexican oligarch with Arab roots, Carlos Slim, last year lagged behind the leader of the rating by $4 billion. The collapse of the shares of his companies led to the loss of a whole billion; however, already in the summer of 2014, Slim more than won back the fall, bringing his fortune to $ 79.6 billion - and, according to Forbes, again overtook Bill Gates. But until the results of 2014 are summed up, we still left the palm to Bill - especially his birthday.
The 74-year-old oligarch owns the assets of many companies, including those in the United States. In particular, Slim is one of the minority shareholders of the publishing house The New York Times Co. and retailer Saks Fifth Avenue.
A monopolist in the Mexican communications market, Carlos Slim is also willing to invest in non-core assets. So, in 2012, he acquired the famous football club from Spain Real Oviedo, which was on the verge of bankruptcy; this was preceded by a powerful fundraising flash mob launched by former club players.
State:$64 billion
Occupation: fashion retail
A country: Spain
Quote: does not give interviews
The king of fashion retail, the founder of the legendary Inditex chain, Amancio made his fortune so successfully that even three years after leaving the company, it keeps him in the top three. the richest people planets.
In the previous two years, Ortega has raised $26.5 billion from the powerfully growing shares of his own company and various properties in Spain, the US and the UK.
The billionaire has a particular weakness for buying skyscrapers: today he already has 26 buildings in his collection, including the 43-story Torre Picasso in Madrid. After the death of his wife Rosalia Mera in 2013, he was the only one left at the helm of Zara - the future giant Inditex - back in 1975. Ortega himself has three heirs: daughters Sandra and Marta and son Marcos.
State:$58.2 billion
Occupation: investments
A country: USA
Quote: “I am the best investor because I am a businessman and I the best businessman because I'm an investor"
The restless old man, the same impenetrable Oracle from Omaha, increased his fortune by another $ 4.7 billion over the past year. Investment genius Warren Buffett has been tossing and turning such sums all his life that his own bank account hardly causes any special feelings in him.
State:$48 billion
Occupation: IT
A country: USA
Quote: “It’s not enough for me to just win. Everyone around must go bankrupt"
The founder and owner of Oracle Corporation grew $ 5 billion in a year, but still could not repeat his own record of 2012 - the third place in the ranking of the world's rich. In September 2014, Ellison, following a certain global trend, left the post of CEO of Oracle after 38 years in this position.
Larry first got on the Forbes rich list in 1986, when he had $ 185 million in his accounts. Today, the businessman collects villas on the coast of Malibu and is listed as the owner of almost the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai, where he is trying to create a "paradise on Earth." Why? Because he can afford it.
State:$40 billion each
Occupation: industry
A country: USA
Quote: "Power is coercion"
Every time a global crisis occurs, it hits the main areas of human life. As a rule, companies collapse with a crash, production facilities are closed with a bang. But in the general chaos there are entrepreneurs who not only do not pay attention to such shocks, but also benefit from them. And for some, such conditions become prerequisites for the development of their own multi-million dollar business.
Of course, if we talk about successful people from other countries, especially distant ones, the example looks uninspiring. After all, these great successful people developed in different conditions than ours. Therefore, we will not shake the air in vain, but we will talk about several entrepreneurs in Russia who today have millions of dollars of capital.
Domestic entrepreneurs
Most famous example all over the country - Russian young entrepreneurs who created the social network VKontakte. Almost all the founders and ideologists today have sold their shares in the business. The reason for this, as one of the main founders Pavel Durov admitted, is the impossible conditions within Russia for the development of honest private business. He complained that the service is constantly trying to seize, divide, change, and then sell. After all, he has a huge impact on the public. But Durov did not fight the pressure, but simply emigrated abroad and travels around the world, not staying anywhere for a long time. And gradually develops a new project with his team.
But we are more interested in the very fact that, despite the difficult economic period, it was possible to create such a powerful commercial project. For example, one of Durov's partners, Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, invested $30,000 in his business at the start of his business, and six years later became Russia's dollar billionaire, and the youngest at that.
But these are not the only well-known domestic entrepreneurs today who have reached amazing heights in business in difficult economic times. Let's talk about a few more below.
Maxim Nogotkov
Even during the crisis period, Nogotkov stated that the Russian market is favorable for the development of his business: there are many unfilled niches and a low level of competition. He did not throw words into the wind, and four years after such a statement, he was included in the rating of the 200 richest entrepreneurs in Russia thanks to the creation and management of the Svyaznoy group of companies.
Ilya Shershnev
Not all well-known businessmen in Russia started their business in their student years, but Ilya is one of those. As a student, he worked for the real estate company Penny Lane Realty. Having gained the necessary experience there, he founded his own Swiss Realty Group. By the beginning of the crisis, the company's annual turnover was $ 10 billion. But Shershnev had no experience in keeping his offspring afloat in difficult conditions, so it had to be closed. But the entrepreneur did not retire, remaining to work in this area as an expert, evaluating and managing the real estate of three shareholders.
Dmitry Salikhov
Before founding his business, Dmitry changed three various works. With the latter, he was fired due to a reduction in staff in connection with the impending crisis. But this did not disappoint him. Like many other entrepreneurs, he used this opportunity to start his own business.
It consisted in the provision of transfer transportation. He began with cooperation with several drivers in their cars, who, by agreement, met passengers at airports and delivered them to the specified addresses. When enough funds were raised to open his own office, Salikhov began to cooperate with the best taxi services. This gave I’way the status of an organization and led corporate clients. Now the company had two offices - one in each of the capitals of Russia.
But Dmitry did not stop there. Today, the services of his company can be used in 65 countries in 200 cities. At the same time, Salikov himself admits that he did not expect such a scale of business. His only desire was to occupy a free niche.
Andrey Guzairov
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Andrei worked in the West, where he spied on an idea for own business in Russia. Having accumulated for three years a suitable start-up capital, he opened the company CreditCardsOnline. The purpose of the project was to form a database of offers from all Russian banks to open credit cards. Today, 25% of the company's shares belong to the Finam Global fund, and the entrepreneur himself has a couple more Internet projects related to finance.
Andrey Romanenko
Before implementing successful idea, Andrey sold computer games, then made polyethylene
packages, and the start-up capital was earned on the production of plastic cards. It was quite a profitable business, but Romanenko felt that something more universal could be created. Thinking about options, he came up with the idea of creating Qiwi payment terminals. Initially, he did not make big bets on the project, but it turned out to be surprisingly successful. Already in 2013, it had more than 65 million users every month and a billion dollars of capitalization.
Vsevolod Starkh
Perhaps we lied, saying that Shershnev is one of the few who started a business while studying at a university. Vsevolod Fear surpassed him, starting entrepreneurial activity while being a high school senior. Even then, he was acutely aware of the need to earn his money, and the Internet provided the best opportunities for this. He started simply: he created his own website, bought a thousand USB cables in bulk and resold them online through his resource. When the enterprise began to develop successfully, he named the Sotmarket online store and began selling various accessories for mobile phones. Having accumulated enough funds, he further expanded his assortment with telephones themselves, then with small inexpensive equipment.
In 2012, he sold a controlling stake to the IQ One Holdings fund, and the online store grew in value to $ 100 million. The ideologue and founder himself continues to independently monitor the comments that customers leave on the resource. And there are up to 5 thousand buyers per day.
Dmitry Kibkalo
The formation of this entrepreneur is a confluence of various successful accidents. Although there is a whole category of people who believe that there are no accidents. And in a way they are right. And the case began with the fact that an employee of the production center Dmitry Kibkalo decided to give his father a board game "Jackal" for his birthday. The difficulty was that this pirate game was invented back in the 70s, and today it was not on sale.
Then Dmitry recreated it and turned to the manufacturers for a seal. It is strange why he did not turn to the popular online printing centers, where they make such things from one copy and more. In any case, this difficulty played important role in the further viability of Dmitry. He found a company that agreed to print the minimum batch of such a game - 100 copies. He gave one to his father, as planned. The remaining 99 were gradually sold out via the Internet, literally returning the invested money in just a month. Dmitry liked it and he created the Mosigra company, which began selling board games, but already in an offline format. Today, the chain of stores unites 17 own points of sale and 71 franchising projects. And they work not only in Russia. In total, Dmitry receives about 450 million rubles from the project.
Gevorg Sargsyan
It is difficult to describe Sargsyan's success. He did a fairly simple thing - he removed from the status of "pirated" products the adaptation of foreign games to Russian realities. True, such a step only looks simple from the outside. Before him was the need to sign a contract with foreign manufacturers games. To achieve this, I had to include all available communication skills and embellish my abilities and achievements a little. However, the contracts were awarded, Innova was established and successful business today brings Gevork one and a half billion rubles. The company is engaged in game projects in the amount of more than ten pieces, the most famous of which are Planet Side II, Lineage II, Aion and others. (11 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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Do you know who is the most successful businessman in Russia? You will probably immediately name such names as Prokhorov, Abramovich, Usmanov, Fridman and others. The success story of "old school" businessmen dates back to the 80s and 90s. The chronology of earning billions from these people is of the same type and is known to everyone. The 21st century is now in the yard - the time of new discoveries and the furious development of the IT industry. Some have gloriously succeeded in this and become successful millionaires at a fairly young age. Your attention is presented a list of "The most successful businessmen in Russia under 40". Of course, the leader in this area is Pavel Durov, but there are several more people who managed to make their multi-million dollar fortune before the age of 40. This article is a story about how successful businessmen in Runet become.
31 years old, founder and owner of the popular messenger Telegram. Net Worth - $1 Billion
In 2014, the number of users of the unique Telegram messenger was about 35 million people, and a year later there were more than 60 million (active monthly statistics). The trend of registering new users has continued to this day. In May 2015, Pavel Durov stated that 220,000 new users connect to the Telegram cross-platform application every day. If we estimate the scale of development of this project, then today the number of users should exceed 100 million people. The uniqueness and popularity of this messenger is immediately determined by the fact that the application itself is free and available for instant download and use. Also, an exceptional feature of Telegram is its confidentiality - all users of this social network can be sure that their correspondence will always be private and inaccessible to interception.
Unprecedented success of Durov after the launch of the social network "VKontakte"
Pavel Durov is a truly successful businessman and entrepreneur. The source of his wealth and popularity originates in the social network VKontakte, which he launched in 2006. This project has gained incredible popularity among the Russian-speaking population. This startup began to rapidly grow in mass. Having hooked every resident of the post-Soviet space into his social network, Pavel Durov very soon became a major millionaire, and the estimated value of VK exceeded $ 1.5 billion. For several years, Durov bought up shares on VKontakte. Pavel made millions of dollars doing it. In December 2014, Durov sold his last 12% of his own shares and ceased to be the owner of the most popular social network in Runet.
Pavel Durov's fortune
Little is known about Pavel's current life, because the billionaire does not like interviews and the press. In his Instagram, we can see photos from New York, then from San Francisco. Durov also often visits European capitals. It is known that Pavel is a true lover of picturesque nature. The young often visits the Finnish lakes, rests in Karelia and skis in Switzerland from time to time.
Today it has 1 billion dollars. He is the most successful young businessman in Russia. Pavel himself has repeatedly stated that the estimated value of Telegram varies from 3 to 4 billion dollars. He made these estimates based on what offers he received regarding the buyout of the Telegram messenger.
Ivan Tavrin: 39 years old, owner of YuTV Holding (USM Holdings). Net worth - $400 million
In 1996, while still a student at the MGIMO Faculty of Law, together with his friend, he founded advertising agency"Contract". In 2000, the agency's annual profits exceeded $10 million. In 2001 he founded new company called "Regional Media Group".
The area of activity of RMG was still the same - the sale of media assets. In 2005, eight regional TV stations operated under the auspices of RMG. Tavrin's fortune at that time already totaled tens of millions of dollars, but the successful businessman went further. In 2010, Ivan Tavrin established the Media-1 holding, which was created to merge assets with AF Media Holding (which included well-known TV channels such as Muz-TV and 7TV), which was subsequently owned by the combined company became known as YuTV Holding. Thanks to this integration, Ivan Tavrin received a 50% stake from YuTV Holding.
To date, the state of Ivan Tavrin has about $ 400 million. In addition to owning shares in YuTV Holding, a successful businessman is a member of the board of directors of Kommersant, and also holds a post CEO company "Megafon".
Voinov brothers - Semyon and Efim, 33 years old: founders of Zeptolab. Net Worth - $250 million each
Successful modern Russian businessmen are even those who make mobile games. These representatives are the Voinov brothers - the creators and developers of the most popular game for mobile phones Cut The Rope. In 2015, the game reached a new promising level - the Indian company Nazara Games bought the franchise from Zeptolab. The prospect of this deal is designed to capture the Indian subcontinent.
The mobile game Cut The Rope was released in 2010 and over the 5 years of its existence has acquired an audience of 750 million users. Along with this, Semyon and Efim Voinovs became big millionaires. The popularity of the Cut The Rope game is so great that the main character Om Nom became crowded on the screen of a mobile device - a whole series was dedicated to him, and in 2016 a whole cartoon about Om Nom was released.
The Voinov brothers are truly successful businessmen in Russia. They made their fortune creating exciting games under mobile devices. The success story of Yefim and Semyon is truly amazing.
Little is known about the brothers' personal lives. Warriors do not like to give interviews and remain in the shadows from television cameras and the press.
Petr Kutis: 38, founder of OneTwoTrip. Net Worth - $130 Million
Successful Russian businessmen have also succeeded in the air ticket sales market. One of these representatives is Petr Kutis, the founder of OneTwoTrip. In 2014, online sales of airline tickets (including hotel and hotel reservations) totaled $11.2 billion worldwide. The indicator is very impressive, but analysts predict that the market will continue to grow and increase by 20-25% every year.
Experts believe that Kutis' fortune is about $ 130 million, but the businessman himself does not cover or comment on his financial affairs. It is known that in 2012 OneTwoTrip was invested in 25 million dollars by companies such as Phenomen Ventures ($9 million) and Atomico ($9 million). By the way, Atomico belongs to Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom. information that funds from Goldman Sachs ($8 million) and Vostok New Ventures ($4 million) were invested in OneTwoTrip in 2015. However, successful businessman Petr Kutis refuses to comment and reveal all the secrets of transactions .
Alexander Agapitov: 31, founder of Xsolla and Slemma. Net Worth - $125 million
Not all successful Russian businessmen were excellent students in educational institutions. A clear example is Alexander Agapitov, who was expelled from the institute for low attendance. Alexander at a certain point stopped going to classes, because he was engaged own work- he wrote a unique algorithm for betting sites analytics. His software was so successful that he predicted the outcome of sporting events with an 80% probability. Soon Agapitov launched his own service for paying for games via the Internet. The first development of the future millionaire was not doomed to major success, however, along with it, new ideas and developments were born. After a while, the improved product began to gain success, and soon the service developed into Xsolla, which is headquartered in California. Based software Xsolla operates over 700 payment systems around the world. The estimated value of the company varies from 1 to 1.5 billion dollars.
Conclusion
Stories successful businessmen always surprise the masses. All these people differ from ordinary mortals in their strong-willed attitude and faith in their work. The new generation of businessmen is inversely different from the representatives of the old school. Successful modern businessmen are, first of all, people of the future. After all, all of them are somehow connected with the media space, the IT industry and the Internet, and all these areas are our future.
driving force modern economy, as well as the reason for improving the welfare of society are entrepreneurs who, by playing with competition among themselves, trying to earn more money, unwittingly have a positive impact on society. Successful entrepreneurs are also role models for many individuals, as they thanks to your incredible efforts, daily work, some of them become owners of large sums of money. We have compiled a rating of 9 famous US entrepreneurs (because this country is the source market economy and competition), which can be called a model of success.
On first place is undoubtedly Bill Gates, one of the founders of the famous company Microsoft. From an early age, Bill tried to win in various competitions and promotions. At a young age, Bill Gates began writing his first programs for amateur computers. Thanks to painstaking work, and a good deal of luck, Bill Gates created operating system Windows, which the whole world uses today. Thanks to the constant demand for his product, Bill Gates has become one of the richest entrepreneurs in the world (he has more wealth than many countries). Due to the fact that Bill Gates was able to become the richest entrepreneur from a simple Harvard student, he is at the top of the ranking.
Second the place is occupied by the well-known Steve Jobs , founder of Apple. He can be called a truly great US entrepreneur, because. thanks to his company, the first user computers appeared. Throughout his career, Steve Jobs was haunted by failures, difficulties before which he did not lose heart. Thanks to their determination, tablets and smartphones of Steve Jobs are the most popular and in demand today. Even after his death, devices created by Apple do not lose their popularity.
John Rockefeller ranks in our ranking third place. An American entrepreneur who lived in the 19th century built his business on oil. I use time civil war in America, when both sides were happy to buy oil from John, he climbed high level, having during the oil rush more than 3 percent of the GDP of the entire US.
On fourth location is Mark Zuckerberg, a well-established popular social network on the Internet - Facebook.com. From early childhood, Mark was engaged in programming - he created the simplest games. In his student days, Mark wrote a user taste recognition program for a music player ( Microsoft company offered $2 million for it). Also, at this time, Mark created a prototype of the social. networks - a site where students could upload their photos and vote for photos of friends. Today, the site Facebook.com is one of the leaders in terms of traffic.
Fifth the place is occupied by an entrepreneur from the USA Thomas Alva Edison, who improved telephones, telegraph, film equipment, under his leadership the first commercial incandescent lamp (sample) was developed. It was Thomas who first suggested using the word "Hello" when picking up the phone.
sixth takes place Solomon Price, founder trading companies"FED-MARCH" and "PRICE CLUB", was recognized as the father wholesale trade. Price was a talented leader - he was impatient, did not like idleness and bad job, tried to always go forward, which, of course, allowed him to get to the 6th line of our rating.
On seventh location is Ted Turner- a well-known billionaire who built his fortune on entertainment stations: TBS, CNN, etc. Due to his determination, as well as incredible hard work, Ted Turner can be attributed to the list of the greatest US entrepreneurs.
eighth the place is in the hands Oprah Winfrey, which earned its capital with the help of TV shows. She went down in history as the first female billionaire. Thanks to the fact that Oprah was not afraid of difficulties, and decided to take risks in order not to become a simple TV presenter, her life is now described in entrepreneurship schools around the world.
Fred Smith, supervisor famous company"Fedex", takes 9 place. The company is the first of its kind to provide express delivery services. Fred has come a long way to his successful fortune, but in the end, we can call him one of the great entrepreneurs in the United States.
"Secret" presents the annual rating of the most successful young businessmen in Russia. All of its participants are under 40 yet, the average age is 34 years. Each hero built a business from scratch with his own or borrowed money. We did not include in the list of successful investors. The main criterion for determining the place is the value of the entrepreneur's share in the company (or several companies) he created. The leader of the rating is Pavel Durov. His Telegram reached 100 million users at the beginning of the year, and in recent months has taken several important steps towards turning from a communication tool into a full-fledged media platform. About how we estimated the cost of Telegram, which Durov, according to our data, owns entirely, read in a separate Durov and several more rating participants spend a lot of time abroad or live there permanently, but they are all citizens of Russia. Therefore, you will not find in the list, for example, Sergey Petrossov, the founder of JetSmarter. This "Uber for private jets" is just $1.5 billion, but the Petrossov family left Russia for the US when the future entrepreneur was four years old. In addition, the rating did not include entrepreneurs whose business size can only be estimated by indirect signs. For this reason, for example, there are no Zeptolab founders Semyon and Efim Voinov in it. The creators of Cut the Rope and King of Thieves were never talkative, and in Lately finally faded into the shadows. On the other hand, we managed to evaluate the business of Anton Cherepennikov, the founder of ESforce - the same “e-sports holding”, in which Alisher Usmanov invested $100 million a year ago. We turned to databases (such as SPARK and Kommersant Kartoteka) and other open sources, entrepreneurs themselves, their partners, colleagues, competitors, as well as investors and independent experts for information. If a rating participant's company recently attracted investments, we evaluated it according to the parameters of the transaction. In other cases, we used multipliers for public or already valued by us companies. The data given in the rating is the result of expert and editorial assessments. This information is not "official".
Pavel Durov
In February, Pavel Durov said that 400 million people read Telegram channels, and since then the statistics should have grown significantly: the word “channel” itself no longer needs explanation (at least in Russia). In November, the company launched Telegra.ph, the easiest text publishing system that doesn't even require registration. In October, users got the opportunity to play games directly in the application. Telegram apolitical Durov has gained great popularity among politicians. Russian officials have long trusted their secrets to a messenger developed by the citizens of Saint Kitts and Nevis, but not only them. The magazine l'Express, for example, found out that Telegram is used by French politicians of various views - from members of the ruling party to Marine Le Pen's National Front. The reason is the fear of listening. When Putin congratulated the newly elected President of the United States on his victory in the government telegram (telegram), Durov tweeted: “Think what you want about this man, but he chose The right way congratulate Trump. The ability to easily exchange encrypted messages is not only the main pride and marketing advantage Telegram, but also Durov's uncompromising position. Throughout the year, he removed Islamic State channels from the platform (we have to remind you that his activities are banned in Russia) and at the same time defended his right - and the right of the industry - not to give governments separate preferential access to communication systems. "Never before in the history of mankind have the authorities had so much information, and still they complain that someone is 'going underground'," he told Fortune. In addition to the war with ISIS and the squabbling with the governments of the superpowers, Durov amuses himself with the fact that from time to time, with the help of retweets, he kicks the main competitor - WhatsApp. This is a rare weakness for this person, which he allows himself to show in the public field.
Alexander Agapitov
“Funds write once a week, there were no proposals from strategists this year, but after I graduated from executive programs at UCLA and Stanford, I firmly realized that I can’t imagine life without Xsolla,” Agapitov told Secret. - I will not be able to work with a partner or become part of, for example, Amazon. We recently moved to new office and I signed a lease until 2026. I create a business for centuries and for myself, and not for sale or for financing. What I wish for everyone." 11 years ago Alexander Agapitov from Perm was expelled from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Perm State National Research University - he skipped too much. The student wrote an algorithm for analyzing betting sites that makes winning bets, and launched a service for paying for games on the Internet. These projects took up most of my time. The first service did not shoot, and the second grew into Xsolla, which creates payment and billing tools for developers and publishers of video games. Xsolla supports about 700 payment systems, its products are used by such giants of the gaming industry as, for example, Valve. Xsolla is headquartered in California, where Agapitov moved with his family in 2009. One of the offices is still operating in Perm, another in Seoul, and a third in Nicosia, Cyprus. The Russian "Xsolla" in 2015 earned 4.79 billion rubles (in 2014 - 3.48 billion, in 2013 - 1.66 billion) - this is less than 20% of the global revenue of all Xsolla.
Edward Iloyan
yellow, black and White
“Bring back Daddy's Daughters,” fans of endless sitcoms from Yellow, Black and White write to Eduard Iloyan on social networks. But the producer is clearly not up to it now: in Moscow, the shooting of the feature film “Kitchen. The Last Battle" based on the famous TV series "Kitchen". Iloyan calls this project a milestone for his studio. With each new season, the rating of "Kitchen" did not fall, as is often the case with long series, but, on the contrary, grew. The fifth, penultimate, is the most successful in the entire history of the project and in the very first week of the show became the first series in Moscow in the TNS rating (rating - 5.7%, share - 16%) and the second in Russia. The first feature of this project "Kitchen in Paris" was watched by more than 2 million viewers in cinemas, and the box office receipts amounted to about $ 14 million. So now Yellow, Black and White is preparing the second feature film for release, and in the fall it launched the series "Hotel" on the STS channel Eleon "" - spin-off "Kitchen". However, the life of the production company consists not only of the Kitchen project: in 2016, Yellow, Black and White, together with Disney in Russia, filmed the comedy fairy tale The Last Hero. The creators promise a premiere in October 2017 and hope that it will be watched all over the world. The budget of the film, announced by the producers, is about 345 million rubles. Russian Disney and Iloyan's studio divided the financing of the picture in half. At some point, it seemed that the times of sitcoms and sketch shows (“Give Youth”, “One for All”) for Iloyan passed and now Yellow, Black and White will mainly deal with feature films. But in the summer of 2016, Iloyan promised to shoot 20 new series for different TV channels: “When there was a crisis, we preferred to go to the cinema. Now we see that the market is growing again,” the producer explained. Yellow, Black and White was founded in 2006 by former cavalry officers Eduard Iloyan, Vitaly Shlyappo and Alexey Trotsyuk. The name of the studio, according to the idea of its creators, should symbolize the friendship of peoples - all three producers studied at RUDN University and played in KVN for his team.
Ilya Popov
The successful Smeshariki franchise appeared at the beginning of the 2000s. Prior to that, Ilya Popov, the main beneficiary of the Riki Group (it includes, in particular, the Riki Producer Center, Marmalade Media and German company Smeshariki) was engaged in the production of computer games. Popov's company had already made several hundred games by the time the game about the magical world of the sweet tooth went into production. Over time, round creatures from the Land of Sweets became Smeshariki and conquered not only the Russian audience, but also the foreign one - only in Europe, the USA and China they are called Kikoriki. The brands "Smeshariki" and "Fixies" are successful, the turnover of products produced by licensees amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars. Two full-length cartoons about Smeshariki have already been released - in 2011 and 2016. Next in line is another picture and a cartoon based on the Fixies. By the way, both feature films will be shown in US cinemas - in 2016 the film distributor Shout! Factory got the rights to distribute them. Popov says his company is constantly looking for new characters and new ideas to create other franchises. In October, he announced that he would soon present two new projects. The first is an animated series about the dinosaur Ricky, the second is a cartoon and the series " Child's world", the main characters of which will be "toys known to the Russian audience."
Konstantin Kalinov
Aviasales is the #1 air ticket metasearch engine in Russia. It also works abroad - under the JetRadar brand. Now, probably, few people remember that this project grew out of the travel blog Kosyan.com, which the former St. Petersburg policeman Konstantin Kalinov led in the late 2000s (Kosyan is his school nickname). Since 2010, Aviasales has been headquartered in Phuket, Thailand, where 150 employees of the company work and its founder lives permanently. In 2014, Kalinov raised $10 million from iTech Capital - the fund received a minority stake in Aviasales. No one else invested in Kalinov's company. In a recent interview To Oleg Tinkov, the businessman valued Aviasales at $250 million. Competitors and independent experts interviewed by The Secret believe that in reality the company costs one and a half to two times less (even taking into account that the Chinese travel service Ctrip recently paid $1.7 for Skyscanner billion). Aviasales creates great amount newsbreaks, but they rarely have a direct bearing on the company's business. It's just that Kalinov is one of the most daring brawlers on the Runet. The main means of promotion of the company is situational marketing. One of the biggest scandals of this year is the public skirmish between Kalinov and Olga Strahovskaya, editor-in-chief of Wonderzine. It all started with a post in the Aviasales group, which was dedicated to the divorce of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The actor, on behalf of whom the post was written, complained that he would now have to visit the "extras" (as the adopted children of the couple were called) with grandmothers from all over the world. Kalinov responded to Strakhovskaya's indignation, which, however, was not quite correct, with abuse and sexist insults. However, it is impossible to say that Kalinov does not care at all about his image. He looks after his appearance, and last year, its representatives asked The Secret to replace the photo of the entrepreneur in the rankings because he looked fat in it.
Anton Cherepennikov
"Citadel", ESforce
Anton Cherepennikov got carried away computer games 20 years ago and in the early 2000s, he won a bronze medal at the World Cyber Games Russia. Since 2005, he has been in business: first he traded in Blackberry phones, then in telecommunications equipment. In 2010, an acquaintance from the Virtus.pro esports team approached Cherepennikov. The team was in desperate need of funding, and Cherepennikov undertook to produce it. The more he spent, the more clearly he understood that in eSports they earn not on teams, but on tournaments. Over several years, Virtus.pro has grown into a structure that organizes international competitions and unites sites for 40 million gamers from all over the world. Cherepennikov had no doubt that he could build an international empire, but he needed investment. Through acquaintances, he contacted Alisher Usmanov's USM Holdings. After some negotiations, Usmanov's fund invested $100 million. Esports assets were united under the roof of the Cypriot company Esforce Holding: Virtus.pro club; 180 Internet resources providing coverage for 80% of esports broadcast viewers in Russia and the CIS (the main ones are Cybersport.ru, RuHub and Storm Studio); organizer of Epic Esports Events tournaments. $20 million was spent on strengthening the holding's position in the market, including the purchase of the media rights of the Na'Vi club, a 66% stake in the German club SK Gaming, and the construction of "Europe's largest esports arena" in Moscow. According to ESforce representative Nikita Bokarev, the holding already ranks second in the world in terms of capitalization. In first place is the German Electronic Sports League. Cherepennikov refused to be interviewed for this rating, but earlier he told Dengi magazine that in 2015 the company earned $3 million, and in 2017 he wants to grow to $40 million. Secret estimates ESforce's turnover this year at $20–25 mln. This estimate is confirmed by a source familiar with the structure of the holding. Market players estimate Cherepennikov's share at 50%.
Peter Kutis
OneTwoTrip allows you to book tickets for 800 airlines, including low-cost airlines, and rooms in 750,000 hotels around the world. The other day OneTwoTrip launched a service for organizing business trips in companies. Before OneTwoTrip, Peter Kutis developed another similar service - Anywayanyday. In the fall of 2015, the Swedish fund Vostok New Ventures invested $4 million in OneTwoTrip, and in the summer of 2016 invested another $2.5 million. Now the fund's portfolio contains about 8% of Kutis' company. In 2015, the businessman left the operational management of OneTwoTrip and began to come up with a new service, which he called FinalPrice. He already has a website that promises, "Here your searching ends and your savings begin." Probably, we are talking about a travel club, whose members in exchange for contributions will receive the most profitable offer on the rental of accommodation, transport or the price of tickets for a trip. Kutis first talked about FinalPrice when he was having a drink with Aviasales founder Konstantin Kalinov - the event was broadcast on the Internet. "It's going to be a killer," Cutis promised. “It will be in the mouth of my feet,” Kalinov agreed.
Ruslan Fazlyev
A native of the Bashkir city of Oktyabrsky, Ruslan Fazlyev once went into business to match his fiancee, the daughter of a prominent Ulyanovsk businessman, and then brought one of the most successful online store designers for Facebook, Ecwid, to the market. Over the past five years, the company has raised $6.5 million in investments. According to Fazlyev, the business is growing by 50% every year. In 2016, the Ecwid user base will exceed 1 million people. Fazlyev also owns a stake in X-Cart, a more complex and advanced online store builder. The project, according to the businessman, is growing by 10% per year. The revenue of online stores created with its help is $2 billion a year. Another asset of Fazlyev is a small stake in Bufernaya Bay publishing house (Lifehacker.ru). Most of Fazlyev's clients are in the US, and he spends a lot of time in the company's California office. Life there is very different from Ulyanovsk, where Fazlyev started: before conferences and meetings with partners, he goes jogging to the ocean, but in his homeland he had to fight with spiders.
Maxim Belonogov and Oleg Shlepanov
"Maksim"
$45.6 million each
Kurgan taxi order service "Maxim" is widely known in the regions. his classmates Maxim Belonogov and Oleg Shlepanov back in 2003. Since then, the business has grown from a control room in Shadrinsk to 159 full-fledged branches, 21 of which are abroad. This year, the company changed its logo, updated the application, sold its first franchises and became the author of a unique record: Maxim completed the longest known real taxi ride in Russia - from Izobilny (Stavropol Territory) to Ussuriysk (Primorsky Territory). A driver with three passengers traveled 9,200 km in nine days and earned 120,000 rubles. Belonogov took part in the transarctic expedition in March. He tested the Burlak wheeled all-terrain vehicle in Baydaratskaya Bay, a vehicle designed to reach the geographic North Pole and return back to Eurasia without fuel or provisions. Burlak will embark on such an expedition in 2019.
Nikolay Evdokimov
SeoPult, AppInTop
Nikolai Evdokimov, a thermophysicist by education (MSTU named after Bauman), saw the prospects of the direction of SEO-optimization ten years ago. Then he, together with his friends - Igor Artemenko and Pavel Yushkevich - founded the company SeoPult. The market in those years was almost undeveloped: it was possible to bring a site to the first lines in Yandex or Google for only $50. Seopult captured 70% of the market, doubling revenue annually. Such success charmed investors: in 2012, the iTech Capital fund invested $10 million in the company and received a minority stake (the share was not disclosed). In 2014, the second round of investments took place: iTech Capital poured in another $10-30 million (according to market participants). But then, due to the depreciation of the ruble and the crisis, revenue growth slowed down - most of the company's clients are in Russia. Now the share of Nikolai Evdokimov in Seopult is, according to him, 20%. The company's revenue, taking into account the performance of previous years and investors' assurances of growth, is 1.5-2 billion rubles. Multipliers in this market are valued at odds of three to five. Accordingly, the average valuation of the company is about $120 million. SeoPult is not Evdokimov's only business. Three years ago, the entrepreneur began to actively engage in mobile marketing and develop a service for promotion mobile applications AppInTop. Evdokimov estimates his share in this company at 63%. Other small stakes are owned by Evdokimov's co-investors and the Run Capital fund, and one of its shareholders (and iTech Capital co-investor) Andrey Romanenko heads the board of directors of AppInTop. The deal with Run Capital was valued at $6 million.
Boris Batin and Alexander Dunaev
33 years old and 29 years old
For $37.5 million
The founders of the ID Finance holding (which develops the MoneyMan microfinance Internet service) Boris Batin and Alexander Dunaev met in the UK: Batin studied at Cambridge, and Dunaev studied at King's College London. They then worked for Deutsche Bank and Renaissance Capital. In 2015, MoneyMan was the 12th MFI in Russia in terms of portfolio size, and in 2016 Batin and Dunaev's service ranks eighth. From 2013 to 2015, Russian revenue increased from 71.79 million to 1.07 billion rubles. At the same time, the company also operates abroad - in Georgia, Spain, Kazakhstan and Poland, as well as in Brazil (since December this year). Founders estimate the global revenue of ID Finance at $20.8 million last year and $72 million this year. In the summer of 2015, ID Finance received $6 million from the venture capital fund Emery Capital and businessman Vadim Dymov. In total, ID Finance has already raised $12 million in investments. There were no deals this year, but Batin and Dunaev told The Secret that some "international private-equity funds" valued their business at $200 million. Dunaev's family lives in London. He visits his relatives every weekend, and divides his weekdays between Moscow and Barcelona. At least twice a month, he flies to countries where MoneyMan operates.
Fedor Ovchinnikov
"Dodo Pizza"
Fedor Ovchinnikov opened the first pizza delivery service in Syktyvkar in 2011, today the network already has 146 pizzerias (136 points are operated by franchisees), and plans to open 32 more by the end of the year. Last year, few believed that the Dodo Pizza network could help out 1 billion rubles, but she succeeded. The goal for this year is 3 billion rubles. Judging by the franchisee's reports, it will also be implemented. Ovchinnikov's franchisees operate in nine countries. Since 2016, Dodo Pizza has been in the USA. “You are cool guys, but what you are doing is pure madness,” one of the future competitors in America told Ovchinnikov. “You might as well take your money, go to the casino and bet it on zero.” However, a delivery service in Oxford, Mississippi, opened in March and went to zero in five months. In 2017, Ovchinnikov plans to open at least three outlets in America. In August, Dodo attracted Dmitry Sysoev, co-founder of 2GIS, as an investor. Little is known about the content of the deal. Ovchinnikov says he owns 61.86% of the shares. Sysoev, according to him, valued the company at $ 50 million. Direct competitors, with whom Ovchinnikov often dives in the public field, told The Secret on condition of anonymity that, according to them, Dodo Pizza cannot cost more than $ 35 million.
Evgeny Demin and Elena Belous
$20.5 million each
Husband and wife
“November 2000 turned out to be sunny and cool - I remember it well, because I went on foot to receive the seal of our newly formed company,” Evgeny Demin begins his next letter to Splat buyers. After 16 years, the company founded by him and his wife is the largest Russian manufacturer toothpaste. In the Russian pharmacy market, the brand ranks third after Rocs and Lacalut products. However, this is not the main sales channel - supermarkets and convenience stores are in the first place. In total, Splat is sold in 50 countries (16 of them were added this year). Splat is not limited to one brand. Now Evgeny Demin and Elena Belous also produce BioMio household chemicals, Lallum Baby cosmetics for children and individual products for oral care Iney and Innova. This year they entered a new niche for the company - shampoos and hair balms under the Heya Luxury brand. Once upon a time, Evgeny Demin and Elena Belous thought they thought about dividing responsibilities: one is engaged in work, and the other is at home. But Whitebeard, in the role of a housewife, could not stand even a few days. After the birth of children, the issue of Belous leaving the business again became relevant, but was resolved with the help of authority - Yevgeny Demin went to Athos to the elder Janis, who recommended leaving everything as it is.
