Yola, a world-known constructor of websites for small businesses, will launch an application for creating Internet stores, developed by Ulyanovsk firm Ecwid, innovation and venture news source UNOVA reports citing the venture fund Runa Capital that owns Ecwid.

The user-friendly application will reportedly be available to Yola's 5 million users.

According to Trevor Harries-Jones, Yola president and COO, his company highly values the Ecwid application for its simplicity and security. “Since Ecwid is very functional, our clients can create Internet stores with unique functionalities, unavailable from other website constructors”, he said.

Ruslan Fazliyev, founder and CEO, Ecwid, in his turn, added that small and medium businesses were seeking tools to build websites that they could manage themselves. However, most of these tools offer very limited e-commerce solutions, if any. “Cooperation between Yola and Ecwid breaks the stereotype. By offering rich functional capacities and with the application's easy use on any page or website, Yola will exceed highest expectations of its customers who choose to try themselves in e-commerce,” he positively stated.

At the end of last year Ecwid raised a $1.5m investment from Runa Capital. The money was used to open an office in California and add more development personnel. Under plans for 2012, Ecwid will grow its customer base from 100,000 to 1 million.

“This is a unique tool, which is needed by millions of medium-sized and small businesses all over the world. We are positive that Ecwid’s capitalization will reach $100m in the next five years,” said Sergey Belousov, founder, Runa Capital.