Social Discovery Ventures

Social Discovery Ventures
Industry Internet
Founded 1998
Founders
Area served
 United States, China, Colombia, Post-Soviet states, EU, Asia, Latin America
Website sdventures.com

Social Discovery Ventures (SDVentures) creates, supports and promotes Internet projects such as communication platforms that enable people from different countries to expand their social and business networks – to travel, learn foreign languages, play online, make friends and date.[1] SDVentures invested into more than 50 international projects among those TripTogether, Dating.com, PumpUp,[2] Streetlife,[3] LinguaLeo,[4] Thrill,[5] Layer,[6] Roomi etc.[7] SDVentures has founded technological companies such as UsabilityLab and Payonline.[8] The company contributes to scientific and humanitarian projects. Its corporate values are underpinned by innovative technologies and contemporary art.[7]

The company has offices in New York (United States),[9] Moscow (Russia), Hong Kong (China),[10] Minsk (Belarus) and Riga (Latvia),[8][11] with over 500 employees.[12] The Moscow office employees are involved in the corporate soccer championship.

History

The company was founded in 1998 as a developer of technological platforms for online social communication. In 2006, the company founded UsabilityLab, the largest usability company in Eastern Europe.

In 2008, it founded an Internet-based payment system Payonline.[8] In 2012, UsabilityLab and Payonline were winners of the Runet Prize competition in the Innovation and Technology, and Economy, Business and Investments categories.[13] In March 2013, the TripTogether project was launched, helping travelers all over the world to communicate with each other.[7] In June 2014, the holding company organized an expedition to Greenland, dedicated to the 'problem of free will and consciousness in analytic philosophy'.

In 2015, Payonline was sold for more than $8 million to the US public corporation Net Element.[14] That same spring, the company invested $500,000 in the development of LinguaLeo[15] and acquired the Dating.com website.

In 2018, SDVentures and Hurski Limited joined in with the Gagarin Capital asset management company as General Partners.Amount of liabilities of the new partners equaled to $ 6 mln within the total dedicated volume of the fund which amounts to $55 mln.[16][17][18]

Projects

  • ShoCase: social network for people in the creative professions
  • Streetlife: social network for neighbors
  • TripTogether: a platform for planning collaborative trips and seeking traveling companions
  • Payonline: an Internet payment system for goods and services, which also provides a peer-to-peer money transfer service between users
  • Dating.com: a platform for meeting friends and partners around the world
  • LinguaLeo: an educational platform for learning and practicing foreign languages
  • Layer: the company developing software for messaging, voice and video to any application
  • PumpUP: an internet community to share and achieve health goals
  • Thrill: mobile dating company in India
  • Roomi: marketplace for shared housing and apartments

Science initiatives

The company organized and currently supports the Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies which partners with Moscow State University, Philosophy Department.

In 2014, the company organized a philosophical conference and expedition dedicated to the 'problem of free will and consciousness'. The expedition took place on a schooner heading to the shores of Greenland. The most renown philosophers participated: Daniel Dennett (American philosopher who won the Erasmus prize in 2012), David Chalmers (Australian philosopher and cognitivist, specializing in philosophy of mind and language), Paul Churchland and Patricia Churchland (world famous neurophilosophers).[19]

Art initiatives

Social Discovery Ventures organized the publication of a series of art works under the title "Contemporary Art". The album presents the most significant works of a number of artists and their reviews by a leading contemporary art critic Viktor Miziano.

The company cooperates with various Russian and European artists, collectors, critics and musicians, including Dmitry Gutov, Oleg Kulik,[20] Pierre-Christian Brochet, Mikhail Pyatigorsky and Polina Osetinskaya.

Social Discovery Ventures is the organizer of two street piano festivals in Moscow in Muzeon Park.[21] - in cooperation with the Igor Butman production center at September 2014, and with Igor Butman' orchestra and Daria Parkhomenko at September 2016. Specially for last festival such contemporary musicians and art researchers as Petr Aydu, Olga Kroitor, Electroboutique art-group, Ian Kalberzin, Oleg Makarov, Alexander Kaplan researched and introduced a 'hybrid piano' concept and samples. Also, a number of well-known musicians, such as Vladimir Nesterenko, Oleg Akkuratov, Anton Baronin, Polina Osetinskaya and Valeri Grohovski participated festival.[22]

It ran a pop-up exhibition of contemporary technological art under the title "Superconduction" in Riga.[1][23]

In 2016, it was an official partner of the Art zone at the Geek Picnic 2016 festival.[24]

In 2016/17, the SDV Arts & Science Foundation, established by SDVentures, launched a new grant program "Art and Technology" in cooperation with the "Garage" Museum of Contemporary Art. The grant was designed for young artists working in the fields of IT technology and science art.[25]At the final stage of the grant program, the SDV Arts & Science Foundation hosted the art residence for the scholarship winners in the OraculeTang Space, a creative co-working space at the SDVentures office in Riga.[26]

In 2017, SDVentures and the P2P bitcoin exchange platform HodlHodl hosted the first Bitcoin Meet-up in the OraculeTang Space in Riga — Baltic Honeybadger.[27][28]

References

  1. 1 2 "Social discovery investment perspective". Forbes Latvia.
  2. ↑ "Health & Fitness Community PumpUp Receives Investment from Social Discovery Ventures". Finsmes. 9 June 2016.
  3. ↑ "Social Discovery Ventures Get Active with Streetlife". WorldNews.
  4. ↑ "LinguaLeo Receives Financing From Social Discovery Ventures". Social Discovery Ventures – via newswire.ca.
  5. ↑ "AnastasiaDate's Parent Company Invests In Indian Dating Group Thrill". Global Dating Insights. 22 June 2015.
  6. ↑ "Layer Gets Funding from Social Discovery Ventures". Yahoo! Finance.
  7. 1 2 3 "TechChill to host a Summer Hub at Positivus Festival". TechHub. 15 June 2016.
  8. 1 2 3 "Social Discoveries in Riga". Forbes Latvia.
  9. ↑ "SDVentures conquers America". Forbes Latvia.
  10. ↑ "SDVentures conquers asian markets". Forbes Latvia.
  11. ↑ "Interview with Dmitry Volkov: SD Ventures opens a co-working space in Riga and continues to invest in unique online brands". EU-Startups.
  12. ↑ "Racing to Success". Response Magazine. 6 August 2015.
  13. ↑ "Состоялась IX Торжественная Церемония вручения". Премия Рунета.
  14. ↑ Net Element Executes Definitive Documentation to Acquire Online Payments Innovator PayOnline
  15. ↑ "LinguaLeo Receives Financing From Social Discovery Ventures". Social Discovery Ventures – via PRNewswirem.
  16. ↑ Юрий Гурский и Дмитрий Волков присоединились к управлению Gagarin Capital
  17. ↑ Юрий Гурский и Дмитрий Волков присоединились к Gagarin Capital
  18. ↑ Ю. Гурский и Д. Волков присоединились к команде Gagarin Capital
  19. ↑ "Greenland cruise". The Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies. 23 June 2014.
  20. ↑ Baitel, Shai (27 October 2015). "Interactive Performance Art/ificial Intelligence — Robotic Ape Comes to BAM". Huffington Post.
  21. ↑ "Street Piano Festival Kicks Off in Moscow Today". Russia-InfoCentre.
  22. ↑ "Фестиваль трансцендентных фортепиано в "Музеоне"" (in Russian). Moscow Government. 16 September 2016.
  23. ↑ "Godzilla is the Oracle of conversation with plants. As Dmitry Volkov connects art and technology". BigNews2Day.
  24. ↑ "фестиваль современных технологий, науки и искусств". Allfest.
  25. ↑ "Garage Museum of Contemporary Art continues its program in support of emerging Russian artists". Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.
  26. ↑ "Science art is an attempt to humanize science". Arterritory.com.
  27. ↑ OraculeTangSpace – Stage for international dialogue on Bitcoin
  28. ↑ Baltic Honeybadger 2017
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