‘Russian Hulu’ raises US$40 million of funding

Russian online video service Ivi.ru has raised another US$40 million (€31 million) round of funding to spend on technology and programming as it fends off competition from the likes of Netflix and Hulu.

The company, which is run by chief executive Oleg Tumanov, has raised money from private equity firm Baring Vostok as well as existing investors ru-Net, Tiger Global, Prof-Media and Frontier Ventures.

This comes as speculation increases that both Hulu and Netflix are eyeing local launches in Russia.

Ivi.ru currently has over 65,000 film and television titles and has a number of deals with the major Hollywood studios as well as European and Russian producers and distributors.

“Russia is still the primary market for us. There is still a lot of growth here, and we would like to keep our leading market position in Russia and to engage and bring more users. We do not exclude adjacent markets in the former Soviet Union, but we’re still considering these plans for future expansion. Nothing to announce now,” Tumanov told Techcrunch.