RBC: inDrive taxi service transferred Russian business to a company in Kazakhstan

Taxi service inDrive transferred the main Russian legal entity “Software Development Center” to the Kazakh structure “Indels”. RBC citing sources in the IT market, he writes that under the name INDELS, the company plans to provide urban and international travel services in Russia and the CIS.

Officially, inDrive did not announce the termination of work in Russia. However, according to RBC interlocutors in the taxi market, service representatives said that inDrive formally left the Russian market and localized with other owners under the new INDELS brand. According to a source in the e-commerce market, the new INDELS team currently has about 200 employees. He noted that the company plans to officially announce organizational changes at the end of spring.

It follows from the SPARK materials that back in August 2022, inDrive transferred the Software Development Center to Softforming LLC, which was created a few months before. At the beginning of February this year, the owner of Softforming was the limited liability partnership Indels registered in Kazakhstan. An extract from the register of legal entities in Kazakhstan states that the owner of the company is the former operating director of InDrive in Russia, Marina Arzhakova, and three other individuals.

In May 2022, the founder and CEO of inDriver (that was the name of the inDrive service before the rebranding last year) Arsen Tomsky reportedthat after the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the company decided to transfer part of its employees from Russia to Kazakhstan, Cyprus and other countries. According to him, at the end of February, the share of the Russian Federation in the total volume of inDrive trips was 7%. In March 2023 Arsen Tomsky toldthat the decision to move employees is due to sanctions that “prohibit international companies from keeping employees in Russia.”