Lev Binzumovich Leviev – Driving Force Behind Russian Social Media

Lev Binzumovich Leviev is the co-founder of VK.com social network, Selectel data centre network and BlockTrail, a company that would eventually become BTC.com after a successful exit. Leviev is known as a progressive investor and entrepreneur. 

Early Years and Career

After completing his basic schooling at the Walworth Barbor American International School in Herzliya, Israel, Lev Binzumovich Leviev enrolled at McGill University in Canada where he graduated with a BCOM degree in finance and accounting. After serving in an internship at Ernst & Young, Leviev leapt straight into entrepreneurship and co-founded VK.com in 2006. Previously known as VKontakte, VK.com is the largest social network in Russia. In 2008 he co-founded Selectel, a data centre network launched with the goal of serving VK.com’s processing and storing needs. In 2013 Leviev co-founded BlockTrail, a blockchain company. Two years later, the company was bought by a Chinese bitcoin mining company and renamed to BTC Wallet. In early 2019 Leviev launched LVL1 Group, an international multi-strategy investment management group. 

Location

Lev Binzumovich Leviev was born in Volgograd in Russia and was educated in Israel and Canada. Over the years, Leviev has made several investments in Russia and abroad in countries including Israel, Australia and the United States. Leviev is fluent in Hebrew, Russian and English.

Remarkable Investments

One of Lev Binzumovich Leviev’s most significant investments is a EUR€500,000 investment made in the BlockTrail project which was successfully acquired. He regularly makes substantial investments in Yuri Milner’s DST Global VC investments which includes prominent investments in the Indian cab service Ola Cabs, the Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart and the corporate communications platform Slack. Through DST, Leviev also has shares in Facebook, Alibaba, Twitter, Spotify, Xiaomi and Airbnb. 

Leviev is an active investor in the technology industry of Russia. Investments include:

• Komitet (2012) – A media company in control of three digital platforms in Russia, Vc.ru, Tjournal.ru and DTF.ru.
• Coub (2014) – A Russian video looping platform.
• Livetex (2014) – An online communication service based in Russia.
• Ostrovok.ru (2014) – An online travel agency based in Russia.

Some of Leviev’s most noteworthy international investments are:

• Plarium (2013) – A game developer which was acquired by an Australian slot machine company called Aristocrat Leisure in 2017 for US$500 million.
• Optishell (2015) – A company that developed technology that detects illegal filming in cinemas. 
• Moovit (2015) – An Israel-based data analytics company focused on urban mobility that has developed a public transportation app which is available free of charge.
• Meta (2015) – An American search engine powered by Artificial Intelligence. 

Latest News

In June 2017 and 2018 Haaretz News commemorated Lev Binzumovich Leviev’s 33rd and 34th birthdays. Coinspeaker.com and FXStreet both reported in April 2019 that VK.com is considering a tipping service and may be launching its own cryptocurrency. VK developers did not comment on the news as yet. It was reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin is directing the government to adopt laws set to improve the digital economy by mid-2019.