Tech Meets Geo-Tech: Russia?s Search Giant Yandex Takes $1M, 25% Stake In Seismotech

Yandex may be seen as the anti-Google by pursuing a strategy for growing its search-portal business in Russia and adjacent countries rather than aggressively expanding worldwide, but it is using another route to extend its reach: through investments. Today it confirmed that it has taken a strategic, 25 percent stake in Seimotech, a Russian geophysical exploration company, for $1 million. This represents the first investment of its kind for Yandex, which has otherwise limited its funding activities to tech companies in areas like e-commerce and new technology. (It was one of the early backers of?Face.com, the facial recognition company that this week officially?got bought by Facebook.) At heart, it is a strategic, big-data play: as part of the deal, Yandex says it will be providing computing resources and proprietary technologies for Seimotech to use in its analysis mapping seismic data for purposes like oil and gas exploration.

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