OREANDA-NEWS MTS bought a 13.7% stake in Youdo Web Technologies, which owns the online service Youdo, for $12 million, the operator said.

Youdo is an online ad search platform with an audience of five million users.

The deal was held in the framework of the next round of Youdo to attract investment, in which MTS acted as a lead investor.

YouDo co-founder Alexey Gidirim believes that the partnership with MTS can open "access to a huge audience". The company will remain independent and in case of need for additional capital can attract up to $27 million in the current round of investments.

The funds will be used to expand the geography of business, launch new categories of services, Federal advertising campaign and further automation of the service, the report said.

"We expect that Youdo's entry into the ecosystem of MTS partners will allow realizing the potential for mutually beneficial long-term cooperation. MTS has resources and competencies that can be useful both for geographical expansion and for improving the efficiency of digital marketing of the service, which will help Youdo to maintain high rates of income growth," MTS quotes Alexander Gorbunov, Vice President for strategy and development of the company.

In February MTS bought control over Russian ticket operators Ticketland.ru and " Nominal.ru", and in may increased its share in the online store Ozon to 16.66% from 13.65%.

The total investment in YouDo all the time is $26.5 million In 2016, an online service, $6.2 million invested venture Fund Sistema Sistema Venture Capital. The controlling stake in MTS belongs to AFK Sistema. Other investors Include Flint Capital and United Capital Partner (UCP), QIWI owner Sergey Solonin, and entrepreneur Alexander Kabakov.

On the site of online service YouDo.com customers place orders for a variety of household or business tasks, which respond to the performers. 5 million users are registered on the service.