Fort Ross Ventures management company announces the establishment of a third fund, Fort Ross Seed Fund. It will focus on investments in startups at early stages, such as Round A and seed round. The company expects that the fund will support an aggregate of up to 200 startups. Sberbank, according to its website, will be one of the investors of the third fund, having committed to allocating at least RUR 2 bln ($27 mio). The fund’s total investment pool is set to be up to RUR 8 bln.
The financial support will go to the startups from Russia and near abroad that seek to develop internationally. In addition, the fund will consider projects from other countries with representatives of Russian origin and/or products and services with great potential in Russia.
Fort Ross Ventures will finance startups at their early stages, contribute to international marketing of these companies’ products and services, and integrate them into ecosystems of the largest Russian companies, including that of Sberbank.
As Herman Gref, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank, notes, “Sberbank pays much attention to supporting startups, and together with our future partners we’ve decided to invest in the fund that will help young companies to develop. Today, they are the ones that generate, test, and implement the most breakthrough ideas. We are ready to give them an opportunity to use our technological and operational solutions, integrate with other businesses, share our expertise, act as customers for their products and services, test and market new products together besides investing in these companies. I’m sure that our largest customers and partners will join us, and we will be able to grow more than one modern high-tech company together. It will benefit entrepreneurship and a favorable investment climate.”
“This is the third fund managed by Fort Ross Ventures. Our brand is becoming more and more recognizable around the world. We have assembled an experienced team and developed unique relationships with funds and accelerators from all over the world, primarily in the US, Israel, and Europe,” Victor Orlovsky, Founder and Managing Partner at Fort Ross Ventures, says. “Moreover, we have built close partnerships with major Russian innovating corporations. We have been successfully working with the Sberbank ecosystem for many years. Our second fund partner companies are MegaFon mobile operator, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), X5 retail chain, and others. We are confident that we will manage to find unique projects and invest in outstanding teams. We will help them at all stages of their development in Russia and abroad.”