Investors who came into Yandex in recent years bought stock from existing shareholders. Yandex went on to richly reward its investors, with the algorithm driving its search engine -- conceived to scan the Bible, Russian classical literature and patent texts -- proving superior to that of rival Google, whose co-founder, Sergey Brin, was born in Russia. The company's home site yandex.ru has a market share of 65 percent in Russia, compared with Google's 22 percent, capitalizing on a boom in online advertising to generate sales of $445 million last year, up 43 percent, while earnings rose 90 percent to $135 million.