The record volume of transactions, growth of the average round and the development of deep technologies—such are the main trends cited by Dsight platform analysts in their latest report on the development of the Russian venture market in 2019. The report was prepared in partnership with Kaspersky Lab’s Innovation Hub, Crunchbase, DS Law, EY, and the National Alternative Investment Management Association (NAIMA).
Record-breaking volume of venture deals
“Total investment was estimated at more than $868.7m in 2019, a 13% growth from 2018. This is an absolute record despite a slow economic growth in Russia,” said Arseniy Dabbakh, one of the Dsight founders. However, the report recorded only 230 transactions in 2019, a 1.5-time yoy decrease (310 in 2018). The year ended up with 38 exits, no change compared to 2018.
Average round growth
The jump-like growth in investment is largely due to growth in the average round. In transactions with mature projects, this indicator grew 1.6 times to $78m; in seed-stage transactions it doubled to $0.2m. The average deal’s value at the start-up stage more than tripled to $1.1m.
Deep technologies
“In the early 2010’s, marketplace and various aggregator start-ups were among the most popular; nonetheless, this era has come to an end. Today we see new potential in deep tech start-up projects which are focused on deep technologies and have narrow specialization. These include machine learning, 5G networks, IoT, medtech, industrial safety, and personal data protection,” said Vitaly Mzokov, the head of Kaspersky Lab’s Innovation Hub.
The year 2020 will likely see state-owned funds and corporations, both private and parastatal, bolster their market involvement.
Dsight is a BI (Business Intelligence) platform, with a focus on the technology market. The company helps corporations and investors monitor industry technologies, form a pipeline, and explore markets / start-ups around the world. Dsight publishes Venture Russia reports twice a year. The founders of Dsight are Arseniy Dabbakh and Sergei Kantcerov.
