Veb Ventures (formerly VEB Innovations), a venture fund launched by state development agency VEB.RF (Vnesheconombank) in 2011, is confirming its commitment to support Russia’s tech startups. The fund has pledged to invest 2 billion rubles (more than $31 million at the current exchange rate) in seven companies by the end of 2019.
The move follows the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), which took place earlier this month, Russian tech daily VC.ru reported.
The investments will be provided to the following companies:
- 500 million rubles (nearly $8 million) will go to Galen, a Russian developer and manufacturer of composite materials and glass fiber reinforced polymers, which are used in construction, mining and highway industries;
- 500 million rubles will be provided to Golama, a fast-growing e-grocery delivery startup in Moscow, as reported last week by East-West Digital News;
- 500 million rubles will be invested in O3, a developer and manufacturer of anti-corrosion and fire retardant coatings for metal structures and real concrete;
- 300 million rubles ($4.8 million) has been pledged to Acronis Infoprotect, a provider of data protection and data restoration solutions;
- 200 million rubles ($3.2 million) will be allocated to Brain4Net, a developer of custom solutions for communications operators (another 100 million rubles for this firm will be allocated from Rostelecom’s VC fund CommIT Capital);
- 150 million rubles ($2.4 million) will be invested into BestFitMe, a provider of AI-driven psychometric analysis solutions based on photographs of people that can be used for staffing purposes;
- 50 million rubles ($800,000) will be provided to Atlas Biomed Group for its Onco Atlas project that uses molecular diagnostics for cancer screenings.
Veb Ventures plans to expand its investment portfolio to 35 billion rubles (about $547 million) by 2024, Russian business daily Kommersant reported.
