Russian 1C sells 6% to Vostok Capital Partners for USD 200M

1C (Moscow, Russia), a leading Russian software company has received USD 200M in return for a 9% share in the company.  The investor is Vostok Capital Partners (BVCP) reports newspaper Vedomosti.

Founded in 1991 1C specializes in development, distribution, publishing and support of mass-market software. 1C is the official distributor of software from Microsoft, Novell, Borland, Symantec, ABBYY, Kaspersky Lab, ProMT, Eset Software and over 100 other software vendors. 1C offers more than 10.000 titles of software for office and home use.

1C also develop “1C:Enterprise”, the most popular ERP software for small and medium-sized businesses in Russia.   The 1C:Enterprise suite of programs are intended for automation of everyday enterprise activities such as accounting, HR management, CRM, SRM, MRP, MRP, etc. More than 1 million companies use 1C:Enterprise programs.

Since 1996 1C has been publishing and developing home/entertainment software. Educational software developed by 1C includes a series of 1C:Tutor software representing school education lessons of mathematics, the Russian language, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Educational programs of 1C cover the most of basic school subjects, also contain programs for the post-graduate education support.

1C has released key titles developed by major Russian studios, including Hard Truck and Hard Truck 2 by SoftLab-NSK, Blitzkrieg 1-2, Silent Storm and Heroes of Might and Magic 5 by Nival Interactive, Perimeter by K-D Lab, Soldiers: Heroes of WWII and Faces of War by Best Way, Age of Sail 2, Sea Dogs, Pirates of the Caribbean and Age of Pirates by Akella, Flanker 2.5 and Lock On by Eagle Dynamics, Space Rangers 1 2 by Elemental Games.

Since 1998 1C has released a line of localized products, acting as a co-publisher and distributor of our long-term strategic partners: Snowball Interactive, Nival Interactive and Logrus. 1C’s line-up of localized products includes over 500 titles. Our 1C:Game Collection includes best selling titles by Activision, Atari, Bethesda, Codemasters, Eidos/SCI, Interplay,Microsoft, Ubisoft, THQ and Vivendi Universal Games and other leading international publishers and independent developers.

1C Company is widely acknowledged as a game developer and has several internal studios. In-house development of the company includes IL-2 Sturmovik, IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, Ace Expansion Pack and Pacific Fighters – the award-winning WWII combat flight simulators (worldwide publisher Ubisoft Entertainment). 1C is working as a publisher with over 20 leading development studios and has produced over 50 titles for the PC and consoles. 1C entertainment software is being sold worldwide through distribution partners in North America, the UK, European Union, Australia, China, Japan and many other countries.

At present 8.000 dealers from 600 cities cooperate with 1C. About 7.500 teams constitute the 1C:Franchising partner network,which is a main channel of value-adding for 1C products. 1C reported sales turnover of more than $600 million in 2010. And the sales are expected to increase by 20% in 2011.

Source: 1C