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Luxembourgian Venture Fund Capital Comes to Russia
The Luxembourgian venture fund Mangrove Capital Partners and the Russian ABRT are announcing a joint investment program in Russian IT startup companies today. The funds have joint assets of about $300 million, $290 million of which comes from the Luxembourgian side, and they intend to spend about $20 million of it in Russia. ABRT cofounder Ratmir Timashev stated that the funds are specifically interested in Internet social networks, b2b portals and corporate software. They will invest between $200,000 and $5 million, with ABRT providing a quarter of the money.
Mangrove was set up in 2000. Its most successful project so far has been Skype, in which it was a co-investor. That company was sold to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion. ABRT was formed by Timashev and Andrey Baronov. It invests in IT startup companies in the CIS. Its most successful project has been Aelita Software, which the American corporation Quest Software purchased for $115 million in 2004.
“The domestic IT market is extremely attractive to foreign investors,” commented Troika Dialog investment banking director Vladislav Ryabyuk. “The market is growing 20-30 percent per year as a whole, and I know companies that have increased their proceeds by 50 percent. Worldwide, the IT market is growing at 8-9 percent.” Finam IT investment analysis center director Elina Karaev noted that “There are very few companies that are willing to invest in startup companies, so MCP has the chance to become the leading investor in IT startups in Russia.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 29, 2007
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