Axel Neff

Last updated
Axel Neff
Born
David "Axel" Neff

Buffalo, New York, U.S.
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma mater Swarthmore College
Occupation Entrepreneur
Years activeOctober 2008–Present
Known forCo-Founding Digital Fortress LLC in 2012
Co-Founding Telegram LLC in 2013

David "Axel" Neff is an American businessman, best known for his role as the former Director of International Operations [1] of the Russian social network Vkontakte [2] and as a co-founder of mobile messaging platform Digital Fortress, used to create the instant messaging application Telegram Messenger. Neff was a co-founder of the US based Telegram LLC, [3] which was responsible for the creation of Telegram Messenger. He served as the head of subsidiaries for both companies, Durov LLC [4] and Digital Fortress LLC [5] respectively. Neff was also the director of Pictograph LLC [6] and Telegram LLC. [7]

Contents

Early life

Neff is from Buffalo, New York [8] and graduated high school from Springville Griffith Institute. [9] From there he moved to Philadelphia, PA to attend Swarthmore College, where he studied engineering [10] and played football. [11] He graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Economics. [12]

Career

Involvement in VK

While in College, Neff became acquainted with Ilya Perekopsky and Pavel Durov through a mutual friend at Saint Petersburg State University.

From July 2008 to April 2014, he served as the Assistant Director of International Operations. [13] [ better source needed ] He assisted with various global expansion efforts, VK operational matters in the US, and translation of the social network from Russian into other languages. He played a key role in acquiring the domain name VK.com which VK transitioned to in 2012. [14] He was also involved in VK expansion by sending contest winners iPod Nano [15] promotion from Colden, NY. [16]

Digital Fortress LLC

Digital Fortress LLC was a company created by Neff in his home city of Buffalo, New York in 2012, [17] and co-founded by Pavel Durov. It is engaged in the management and financing of mobile applications. Neff served as the director of this company. Digital Fortress LLC maintained its headquarters in Buffalo, New York. [18] In early 2013 the company bought 96 terabytes of infrastructure from QBC Systems. [19] In April of that same year, Pavel Durov said that Digital Fortress was a cloud cluster, that was created for the benefit of startups from the Start Fellows. [20]

On August 14, 2013, [21] the company released its first experimental application, called Telegram. Telegram is a freemium instant messaging application for smartphones that was built using a new encryption algorithm called MTProto, [22] which was created by Pavel Durov's Brother, Nikolai Durov. [23] [24]

Telegram affiliation

In January 2013, the news channel TV Rain reported that Neff's Digital Fortress company was working on a new project. [25] At that time, it was reported the first application to be supported by Digital Fortress would be called telegra.ph, for which a domain had already been registered. [19] Later this name was dropped in favor of Telegram. [26]

On August 14, 2013 the application was released on the Apple iOS platform. At the same time, a contest was announced to solicit developers to assist in developing the application on Android, referred to as "Durov's Android Challenge". [27]

Shortly following the release of Telegram, Durov publicly spoke with Izvestia stating that "Telegram, strictly speaking is not my project". In this interview he explained that the project he partially supported by investments was Digital Fortress, a cloud hosting platform for projects like Telegram among others. [28]

Three weeks after the launch of Telegram, it began to see nearly immediate success. Every day more than 100 000 new registered users began to appear on the network. Most of whom were from Arab countries. [29] A few months later in 2014, following the sale of WhatsApp to Facebook, [30] Telegram saw a major growth spike when nearly 5 million new users registered in a single day. [31]

Related Research Articles

<i>Moskovskij Komsomolets</i> Moscow-based Soviet and Russian newspaper

Moskovskij Komsomolets is a Moscow-based daily newspaper with a circulation approaching one million, covering general news. Founded in 1919, it is famed for its topical reporting on Russian politics and society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VK (company)</span> Russian internet company

VK, known as Mail.ru Group until 12 October 2021, is a Russian technology company. It started in 1998 as an e-mail service and went on to become a major corporate figure in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VK (service)</span> Russian social media and social networking service

VK is a Russian online social media and social networking service based in Saint Petersburg. VK is available in multiple languages but it is predominantly used by Russian speakers. VK users can message each other publicly or privately, create groups, public pages, and events; share and tag images, audio, and video; and play browser-based games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pavel Durov</span> Russian-born entrepreneur and founder of Telegram

Pavel Valeryevich Durov is a Russian-born French-Emirati entrepreneur who is known for founding social networking site VK and Telegram Messenger. He is the younger brother of Nikolai Durov. As of 29 September 2022, his net worth is estimated at US$15.1 billion. In 2022, he was recognized as the richest person in the United Arab Emirates according to Forbes. In February 2023, Arabian Business named him the most powerful entrepreneur in Dubai.

Nikolai Valeryevich Durov is a Russian-born Kittitian programmer and mathematician. He is the elder brother of Pavel Durov, with whom he founded the social networking site VK and later Telegram Messenger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telegram (software)</span> Cross-platform encrypted instant messaging service

Telegram Messenger is a globally accessible freemium, cross-platform, encrypted, cloud-based and centralized instant messaging (IM) service. The application also provides optional end-to-end encrypted and video calling, VoIP, file sharing and several other features. Telegram was first launched for iOS on 14 August 2013 and Android on 20 October 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lev Binzumovich Leviev</span> Israeli-Russian entrepreneur and investor

Lev Binzumovich Leviev is an Israeli-Russian entrepreneur and investor, founder of international venture capital firm LVL1, co-founder of Russia's largest social network VK.com and the Selectel data center network.

The 2016 Russian Circuit Racing Series was the third season of the Russian Circuit Racing Series, organized by SMP Racing. It was the second season with TCR class cars, competing alongside the Super 2000 TC2 and the Super Production cars.

Valery Semenovich Durov is a Russian antiquarian, philologist, and academic. From 1992 until 2013, he was head of the Department of Classical Philology at St. Petersburg State University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pavel Otdelnov</span> Russian contemporary artist (born 1979)

Pavel Aleksandrovich Otdelnov is an artist working in painting, drawing, video, installations, and exploring such subjects as urban space, environment, Soviet history and historical memory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikolay Kononov</span> Russian journalist and writer

Nikolay Kononov is a Russian writer and journalist. He was editor-in-chief of The Firm's Secret from 2014 to 2017, then editorial director until 2018. The author of four books: Deux Sine Machina: Stories of 20 crazy people who made business in Russia from scratch (2011), Code of Durov. The real story of the social network "VKontakte" and its creator (2012), Author, scissors, paper. How to write impressive texts quickly. 14 lessons (2017), The Uprising (2019), and The Night We Fled (2022).

MDK is the most popular community in social network VK.com with more than 8.3 million followers. By May 2016, MDK grew into a network of communities with a total monthly audience of about 20 million people.

UCP Investment Group is an independent asset management company investing in publicly traded securities and private companies with a primary focus on the Russian market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telegram Open Network</span> Blockchain network originally developed by Telegram

The Open Network is a blockchain-based decentralized computer network technology, originally developed by the Telegram team. In May 2020, Telegram withdrew from the project after litigation with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blocking of Telegram in Russia</span> Blocking access to Telegram in Russia

The blocking of Telegram in Russia is the process of restricting access to Telegram messenger on the territory of the Russian Federation. The technical process of this restriction began on April 16, 2018. The blocking led to interruptions in the operation of many third-party services, but practically did not affect the availability of Telegram in Russia. It was officially unblocked on June 19, 2020.

The Telegram instant messaging service has had more than 50 million users in Iran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yitzchak Mirilashvili</span>

Yitzchak Mirilashvili is an Israeli investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of VK.com (Vkontakte.ru), Russia's largest social network. Mirilashvili lives in Israel, where he oversees his businesses as well as various charitable foundations and causes. Mirilashvili is the controlling shareholder of Israel's Channel 14.

The Russian internet is a part of the Internet with its main content in Russian. According to data from August 2019 and studies conducted by W3Techs, 6.5% of the 10 million most popular Internet sites in the world use Russian. In 2013, according to these studies, the Russian language became the second most popular on the Internet after English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danila Kashin</span> Russian musical artist and YouTuber (born 1996)

Danila Vladimirovich Kashin, also known as DK, is a Russian video blogger, rap artist and EDM producer. On his YouTube channels he publishes videos of musical parodies and author's video clips

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ilya Perekopsky</span>

Ilya Evgenievich Perekopsky is a Russian-born entrepreneur, manager, and investor. Vice President of the VKontakte network (2006-2014), Vice President of Telegram since 2018. Founder of Blackmoon Financial Group and the Blackmoon Crypto startup.

References

  1. ↑ "Mysterious Telegram Founder from Buffalo New York". forbes.ru. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
  2. ↑ "Russian Startups: Digital Fortress". rubase.com. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  3. ↑ "Pavel Durov has cloned Telegram". ewdn.com. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  4. ↑ "Durov LLC, Delaware Company". Delaware Companies. Archived from the original on 3 November 2014. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  5. ↑ "Digital Fortress LLC - New York , NY - Company Data". Dun and Bradstreet.
  6. ↑ "Pictograph follows Telegram". izvestia.ru. 26 August 2013. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  7. ↑ "D&B Credibility: Telegram LLC". dandb.com. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  8. ↑ "Linkedin Profile: Axel Neff". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  9. ↑ "Springville GI Graduate". www.classmates.com. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  10. ↑ "E90 Senior Design Projects 2002-2003". www.swarthmore.edu. 8 July 2014. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  11. ↑ "Linebacker Axel Neff leads the defense with 79 tackles and two sacks". wlu.edu. Archived from the original on 5 August 2010. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  12. ↑ "Neff Educational Background". yatedo.com. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  13. ↑ "Linkedin: Axel Neff". Linkedin. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  14. ↑ "Vkontakte Changes Name" . Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  15. ↑ "iPod Nano won on VK.com" . Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  16. ↑ "VK iPod Nano Discussion Board". kajgana.com. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  17. ↑ "Digital Fortress LLC Entity Information". dos.ny.gov. NYS Dept of State Division of Corporations. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  18. ↑ Швецова, Ксения. (2013-04-23). "Павел Дуров улетел, но обещал вернуться". Руформатор. Archived from the original on 2013-06-02. Retrieved 2013-08-19.
  19. 1 2 Bertola, David. (2013-01-11). "QBC Systems lands contract to service Russian market". American City Business Journals. Retrieved 2013-08-19.
  20. ↑ Пеганов, Александр. (2013-04-22). "Павел Дуров не в США; запускает не стартап, а клауд-хостинг". Цукерберг позвонит. Archived from the original on 2013-08-25. Retrieved 2013-08-19.
  21. ↑ "Telegram Launch: August 14, 2013". Telegramers.com. 10 February 2014. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  22. ↑ "MTProto Description". Telegram.org. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  23. ↑ Болотов, Юрий. (2013-08-15). "Telegram: новый мессенджер от Павла Дурова". Slon.ru . Retrieved 2013-08-19.
  24. ↑ Дорохов, Роман. (2013-08-15). "Американская компания Павла Дурова запустила мессенджер для смартфонов Telegram". Ведомости. Retrieved 2013-08-19.
  25. ↑ "Digital Fortress on TV Rain". tvrain.ru. 21 April 2013. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  26. ↑ "Дуров разъяснил происхождение слухов о новом проекте". Lenta.ru. 2013-04-22. Retrieved 2013-08-19.
  27. ↑ Агамалова, Анастасия. (2013-08-14). "Павел Дуров выложил в AppStore новый мессенджер Telegram". Ведомости. Retrieved 2013-08-19.
  28. ↑ "Telegram is not Durov's". izvestia.ru. 26 August 2013. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  29. ↑ Пеганов, Александр. (2013-09-08). "Телеграм на экспорт". Цукерберг позвонит. Archived from the original on 2013-09-10. Retrieved 2013-09-09.
  30. ↑ "Facebook buys Whatsapp". CNN. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  31. ↑ "5 Mil New Users on Telegram". theguardian.com/. 24 February 2014. Retrieved 3 November 2014.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.