Alexey Mordashov's "Severgrupp" acquired FL.ru, a distant work exchange specializing in the services of digital specialists. According to experts, the deal could pass in the range of 500-700 million rubles. "Severgrupp", in its portfolio which already has such companies as "Netology", JungleJobs.ru and Sever.ai, expects to create on their basis a single service in the field of personnel search and management, education and self-employment.

The division of the investment company "Severgroup" Alexei Mordashov TalentTech acquired 97.5% in the service FL.ru - Exchange remote work, specializing mainly on the services of digital professionals (programmers, web marketers, designers, copywriters), told "Kommersant" representatives of the " "And TalentTech. According to SPARK-Interfax, the subsidiary "Severgrupp" TT-Holding LLC became the owner of 97.5% of the shares of Vaan LLC, the manager of FL.ru, since July 27. The remaining 2.5% - from Anatoly Orlov. The sellers were co-founder Anton Mazhirin, financial investors Vitaliy Martyanov and Artem Bektimirov, as well as the company's management.

FL.ru (formerly Free-lance.ru) was founded by Anton Mazhirin and Vasily Voropayev in May 2005. Now, according to own information, the average monthly audience of the service is more than 1.7 million unique users. The main income of the service is formed by subscribing to the premium account and other additional services. According to SPARK-Interfax, the revenue of Vaan LLC in 2016 amounted to 117.3 million rubles, net profit - 56.5 million rubles. More recent data in the company does not disclose. "The company has been demonstrating stable profits for the past few years," says TalentTech representative Elena Abashkina.

"FL.ru is a strategic asset for TalentTech, since our main task is the creation of a single service that will unite three areas: HR and Tech, EdTech and Freelance, self-employment TalentTech Evgeny Barulin. In the TalentTech portfolio, there is already an online service for searching for masters and repair teams for Repairman.ru, a system for automating work with candidates and employees of Potok.io, the leader of the online market of online education in the field of digital professions Netology, an online school and a resource for the preparation for the USE "Foxford", a site for employers and recruiters JungleJobs.ru and Sever.ai service, using artificial intelligence for recruiting and hiring personnel.

The participants do not disclose the amount of the transaction. Partner iTech Capital Alexei Soloviev believes that she could pass on the multiplier in the amount of seven to nine profits, that is, in the range of 500-700 million rubles. For the model of the marketplace, the results of FL.ru are very high and are knocked out of the average market indicators, if compared with other similar platforms, he notes. "The very concept of what Segruppe is doing is very attractive: the way people work and study today is changing rapidly, and online projects in these areas are closing users' needs and meeting the emerging demand," adds Mr. Soloviev.
 
According to the results of 2017, the volume of private entrepreneurship and small business in the Russian market of services amounted to 5.5 trillion rubles, or 2.4 billion orders, previously indicated in a joint study of Data Insight and Avito. At the same time, more than 80% of the revenue falls on the five largest areas: housing repairs, construction, business services, transportation and transportation, car repairs. In the private services sector, according to the survey, 9.6 million people are employed, more than 10% of the working-age population of the country. For 74% of them, this is the main source of income, for 26% - part-time. The average income from the provision of services is 30 thousand rubles. per month, and Avito (17.5%), VKontakte (13.8%), Repairnik.ru (10%) and Instagram (9.6%) are among the Internet sites in terms of revenue share.