Almaz Capital Partners

The Foundation has offices in Moscow and Menlo Park (Silicon Valley, California). Investors in the Cisco fund include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and IFC. The Almaz Capital fund predominantly focuses on investments in high-growth sectors of the economy, including technology, media and communications.

Closed deals

As of September 2016, several successful closed transactions of the Almaz Capital fund are known. In particular, shares in the following companies were sold:

• 2016: Sensation Systems (buyer Verizon Communications), Appscotch (purchased by AppAnnie).
• 2015: Odin (Parallels division, bought by Ingram Micro).
• 2014: nScaled (absorbed by Acronis).
• 2012: Vyatta (acquired by Brocade).
• 2011: Qik (bought by Skype) and Yandex (going to IPO).

Investments

Among the investments of the fund as of September 2016, shares in the following companies were reported:

• GridGain - joint round with Sberbank, MoneyTimeVentures and RTPVentures;
• Cinarra - joint round with SoftBankGroup and Cisco;
• GoodData - along with Andreessen Horowitz, Intel Capital and Tenaya;
• Hover;
• Content Analytics - along with dunnhumby Ventures;
• MakeTime;
• StarWind Software;
• CarPrice - joint round with Baring Vostok;
• Petcube is a joint round with AVentures and YCombinator.

History

2024: Investing $500k in No-Code platform Platma

On September 10, 2024, startup Platma announced a round of funding for Pre-Seed, during which $2 million was raised. In particular, $500 thousand was provided by the international venture capital fund Almaz Capital Alexander Galitsky. Read more here

2022

The fund invested in a Bulgarian developer of devices for entering the premises

In mid-September 2022, it became known about investing $25 million in Alcatraz AI. The A-series funding round was led by the Alexander Galitsky Almaz Capita Foundation. Read more here.

An investment in American edge computing technology developer Zededa

In July 2022, American edge computing technology developer Zededa announced a $26 million investment. The financing round was attended by Coast Range Capital, Lux Capital, Energize Ventures, Almaz Capital Alexandra Galitskog and a number of other funds. The startup plans to use the funds received to accelerate research and development, as well as to expand sales and marketing. Read more here.

2021

Creation of an educational holding based on EdTech assets

On August 10, 2021, Mail.ru Group announced the creation of an educational holding based on the EdTech services Skillbox and GeekBrains. The new structure was named Skillbox Limited. More than half (50.06%) of the company will be owned by the Mail.ru Group, 22.72% will be owned by the founders of Skillbox, and 14.21% will be owned by Alexander Galitsky's Almaz Capital Partners fund. Another 13% is reserved for a long-term employee motivation program. Read more here.

Investing in the online travel service FinalPrice

On July 5, 2021, OKS Group announced to TAdviser that it had invested in the online travel service FinalPrice, co-investors were Sistema VC and Almaz Capital funds. The volume of the round amounted to $1 million. Read more here.

Investing in agrotech startup OneSoil

In mid-April 2021, the agricultural industry startup OneSoil raised $5 million. Almaz Capital and PortfoLion invested Alexandra Galitsky in the startup. More. here

Investing in a Ukrainian service for recognizing the size of clothes by photo 3DLook

In mid-March 2021, the Ukrainian service for recognizing the size of clothes by photo 3DLook attracted $6.5 million in investments. The Series A funding round was led by Almaz Capital. TMT Investments and Zubr Capital also took part in the deal. The total volume of investments in the Ukrainian service for recognizing the size of clothes by photos reached $11.2 million. Read more here.

Investing in NFWare

Startup NFWare, the developer ON for virtualizations network functions on January 14, 2021 TAdviser announced the attraction of $1.4 million from an international group of investors, including Almaz Capital. More. here

2020

Investment in Xometry

In September 2020, Xometry announced the attraction of $75 million in investments. Most of the money to the startup was provided by T. Rowe Price Associates (exactly how much is not specified). Read more here.

Investing in DMarket

On June 18, 2020, it became known that DMarket - a platform for trade in-game items and a gaming technology monetizations for game developers, creators, content brands and players - raised $6.5 million in investments from the Almaz Capital venture capital fund, as well as the company. Xsolla More here.

2017: Investment in NFWare

In March 2017, Almaz Capital, together with a number of other funds, invested in NFWare. The total volume of investments from all investors of this round amounted to $2 million. Read more here.

2016: Verizon buys Almaz Capital's stake in Sensation Systems

In September 2016, Almaz Capital Partners announced the sale of its stake in Silicon Valley-based Sensor Systems, specializing in IoT solutions and energy-saving lighting technologies, to the largest American telecommunications operator Verizon Communications.

sale was signed in September 2016, its completion is planned in the IV quarter of 2016," the Russians fund^[1] CNews^[1].

Almaz Capital Partners also clarified that at the same time other co-investors - Cisco, GE, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Acuity - also sell their shares in Sensation. As a result, Verizon becomes the 100 percent owner of Sensation, investing "more than $200 million" in it (a specific amount was not disclosed).

Which part of Sensation until recently was owned by Almaz Capital was not indicated in the CNews fund, but they assured that it owned the largest share among other venture capital investors.

The founder of the fund, entrepreneur Alexander Galitsky, considers the change of owners of Sensation to be a significant deal in the venture capital high-tech market. According to him, only about 20 sales of companies worth over $200 million are carried out annually in Silicon Valley.

Almaz Capital reported that this fund was first invested in Sensation in 2013. In the future, the startup also received injections from the fund in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

"We took part in the management of Sensation, as is the case with all our portfolio companies," Almaz Capital said. "After concluding an investment transaction, one of the partners of the Almaz Capital fund must become one of the members of the board of directors of the portfolio company, and, accordingly, participates in making decisions on the business development strategy."

According to Galitsky, Almaz Capital accounts for 45% of the global venture capital market in the United States (only 1-2% in Russia), so Almaz Capital is primarily focused on it and works with companies from Silicon Valley, often with Russian roots.

In Sensation Systems, as noted in the fund, there are no Russian roots. Since 2015, the company has been working in a strategic partnership with the Hungarian video analytics firm Veutecus. In 2016, Sensation absorbed it.

2011: Sale of Skype stake in Qik service and Yandex IPO

In January 2011, Skype announced the acquisition of Qik. Among the sellers of their Qik shares was the Russian investment fund Almaz Capital Partners. His managing partner Alexander Galitsky wrote on his twitter that this was the first exit of the fund from the invested^[1]

In 2011, the company earned on the sale of a share in the course. IPO Yandex

2009: Internet Search Investments share buying rumours

In 2009, it was reported that Almaz Capital could buy a 1-2% stake in Internet Search Investments, which, together with Baring Vostok Capital Partners (BVCP), owns more than 35% of Yandex. The deal is close to completion, the source said. According to another source, the negotiations have not yet been completed and we are talking about "tenths of a percent" of the shares of Internet Search Investments.

Since Internet Search Investments has no other assets, the value of this entire company can be roughly estimated as 35% of Yandex itself, says Kirill Danilyuk, founder of startup Carbucks.ru, a former analyst at the ABRT fund. Based on Yandex's estimate of $1.1 billion, 1-2% of Internet Search Investments cost $3.8-7.7 million, agrees Leonid Delitsyn of Finam. Given the possible premium for growth - for example, as a result of new investments - the upper limit of the transaction value may be close to $8 million, he adds.

It is these amounts - $8-9 million - that Almaz Capital Partners promised to invest in Russian startups and working companies, "which have only a good market and technological idea and team," for a period of 5-7 years.

For Almaz Capital Partners, buying a stake in Yandex's shareholder is a strategic step, a manager close to the negotiators is sure; in particular, Almaz experts will help Yandex acquire startups. Representatives of Almaz Capital Partners, BVCP, Internet Search Investments, Yandex and IFC declined to make official comments.

2008: Foundation Foundation

Almaz Capital was founded on a bridge model in 2008 by Alexander Galitsky with the participation of anchor investors such as Cisco, EBRD and IFC. Then its volume was $125 million, of which $60 million was invested by Cisco and UFG Asset Management.

The fund specialized in venture investments in startups from the USA, Russia and the CIS countries, which create high-tech products for the global market.

Notes