Leta Capital (formerly Leta GIV)

Venture capital firm Leta Capital is a private equity firm, its founder and managing partner is Alexander Chachava, a serial entrepreneur and successful venture investor.

As of December 2021, the firm has three funds under management:

• Leta Capital Fund I (launched in 2012),
• Leta Capital Fund II (launched in 2018),
• Leta Capital Fund III (launched in 2021).

The fund's portfolio already includes more than 35 startups around the world, including such bright companies as InDriver, Novakid, 365Scores, DEVAR, Affise and others.

Performance indicators

2019: Leta Capital Limited Venture Fund Internal Rate of Return - 11% APR in Dollars

On February 19, 2020, LETA Capital announced the financial results of its first LETA Capital Limited fund, operating on the Evergreen model. The fund was formed in 2012, the volume of investments made amounted to $15 million. During the operation of the fund, its IRR (Internal Rate of Return) for funds already paid towards LP amounted to 11% per annum in US dollars; at the same time, growing and liquid companies remain in the fund's portfolio, so the fund's term of operation at the end of 2019 was extended by two years. During this period, LETA Capital intends to sell these companies and ensure the final return of the Fund at the level of 23% per annum. Thus, the fund's DPI (cash back to investors) was 1.25, with the fund's RVPI (valuation of unrealised assets) at 1.44. Thus, the TVPI (expected return of the fund) will be 2.69.

According to the company, all transactions in which the Fund participated were taken into account in calculating profitability: both those that ended with successful "exits" and those in which portfolio companies could not develop their business and were liquidated. In addition to the funds received during the sale of companies, the yield calculation includes the amount of dividends received from the current activities of portfolio companies.

According to the regulations adopted in LETA Capital, the revaluation of the value of companies in the fund's portfolio is carried out only as a result of a liquidity event, for example, when a third-party investor invested in the next round, and not on the basis of multipliers to the operating activities of companies, as some venture capital funds do. This approach provides, on the one hand, a more conservative, but at the same time more accurate and reasonable assessment, taking into account the current market situation and the state of the company itself.

The LETA Capital Limited fund conducted three exits: the largest Switzerland insurance in the corporation Zurich Insurance Group acquired the service - Bright Box it was one of the largest exits Russian of the fund in several years; the company's WeWork bought platform for automating sales decision-making and; marketing Unomy finally, the online audience interaction service was RedHelper acquired by the company. For Livetex February 2020, the Fund's portfolio includes several companies with great potential, including (Double Data specializes in analysis), (big data aggregates; 365Scores for February sports news 2020, the leader in its segment in countries and region) Latin America and the company. EMEA net. Qmarkets

As the managing partner of LETA Capital notes, Alexander Chachava a significant period of the Fund's work fell on a period of difficult economic situation in the country and difficulties associated with the introduction of international sanctions. Nevertheless, even in such conditions, LETA Capital Limited was able to provide a decent positive return. According to to data analyst firm Cambridge Associates, the DPI of American upper quartile funds (top 25%) was 0.66 (LETA 1.25), RVPI 1.83 (LETA 1.44), and TVPI 2.27 (LETA 2.69). The American startups recent years have been significantly overvalued, forcing American funds to lengthen the cycle to exit, expecting venture returns.

LETA Capital executives believe that the fund was led to success by a strategy of investments mainly in sustainable companies that have a reliable business model with high sales margins: even with an unstable macroeconomic situation and a certain foreign policy pressure, such startups are more reliable, depend little on negative factors, which means they are most promising for venture investment in conditions of limited financial resources in the market. LETA Capital intends to follow the same approach in the future.

In addition, according to LETA Capital, its other fund, created in 2017 - LETA Capital I, is also at the stage of active investment. So, as of February 2020, LETA Capital I has a number of promising fast-growing companies in its portfolio, including inDriver, IntelliBoard, Devar, Cerevrum, Unigine. In total, LETA Capital has conducted more than 20 investment transactions. It is assumed that in 2021 the period of development and sale of acquired assets will begin.

History

2022: Investing in Israel's SaaS platform Gaviti

Funding from Leta Capital in the amount of $9 million = = = on April 5, 2022, it became known that Gaviti, which provides software as a service (SaaS) for account management and collection of payments, raised $9 million as part of Series A financing. Read more here.

2021

Investing $100 million in Russian-language startups

In early November 2021, Leta Capital announced the beginning of the investment period of its third fund - Leta Capital Fund III. Its volume is $100 million, funds will be received by Russian-speaking startups around the world. Read more here.

Sale of a stake in a software developer for telecom operators Brain4Net

On October 27, 2021, it became known about the sale of Programmable Networks LLC (brand Brain4Net) to Kaspersky Lab. The latter bought an 80% stake in the developer of solutions for operators from Rostelecom and venture capital funds Typhoon Digital Development and LETA Capital. The remaining 20% will be retained by the founders of the Brain4Net Maxim Kaminsky, Alexander Rumyankov and Sergei Romanov. Read more here.

Investing in the Prodly Application Platform

In October 2021, it became known about investing $10 million in Prodly. The main investor in the Series A funding round was Leta Capital. TMT Investments, Altair Capital, FlyerOne, Shasta Ventures and Norwest Capital also participated in the deal. Read more here.

Investing in Novakid Online English School

In early August 2021, Novakid announced the attraction of $35 million in investments. Invested in the online English language learning platform are the EdTech market-focused Owl Ventures fund, previously invested in educational services MasterClass and Quizlet, and Goodwater Capital, an investor in Twitter and Spotify. Current shareholders also participated in the round, including Leta Capital, PortfoLion, TMT Investments, etc. Read more here.

Investing in Lithuanian ad campaign platform developer Affise

On February 24, 2021, Affise announced an investment of $8 million. As part of the Series A funding round, Leta Capital and TMT Investments were the main investors. Their shares in the project and its estimated value have not been disclosed. Read more here.

2020

Novakid Online English School Investment

As it became known in early December 2020, LETA Capital and TMT Investments invested in Novakid. According to the results of the entire A Series round, the Russian online English school raised $4.25 million. Read more here.

Investing in IntelliBoard

On May 12, 2020, it became known that IntelliBoard (developing a platform for analyzing the work of educational institutions) had attracted about $3.4 million in investments in the A Series round. The funds were received from the American institutional investor Connecticut Innovations, as well as from funds with Russian roots Flashpoint, SmartHub VC and Leta Capital. Read more here.

Investing in AI Buddy

On April 8, 2020, TAdviser became known that the Russian venture capital fund LETA Capital became the lead investor of AI Buddy, the creator of the modern direction in distance education, MyBuddy.ai. Read more here.

Investing in Novakid

On January 29, 2020, it became known that venture the LETA Capital fund announced an investment round together South Korean with the BonAngels venture fund into a company - Novakid a developer and provider of online training services operating in the countries and. Europe Asia More here

2019: $500K investment in Unigine

On December 3, 2019, it became known that the Russian venture capital fund Leta Capital invested $500K in its portfolio company Unigine. These funds are planned to be used to expand the company's presence in international markets. Read more here.

2018

According to information for 2018, Leta Capital is a venture capital fund of Leta Group. The idea of ​ ​ the fund is software is eating up the world.

The fund invests in developers ON for B2B, which focus on the most promising markets, where software it is growing dynamically, creating a new market or replacing the "old" one: these,,, Big Data,, SaaS, Cloud Computing IoT Cybersecurity SDN Communications, ,/,. OTT The purpose of ARVR Fintech the investment is companies engaged in innovative development of IT products and services at the late seed stage and early growth stage.

Launch of a second fund with a capital of $50 million

On October 31, 2018, Leta Capital announced the completion of the collection of its second fund with a capital of $50 million.

The fund's strategy is to follow the paradigm, "software is still eating up the world, and there are still a lot to be eaten." Leta Capital believes that despite the rapid development of IT, as well as a greater turn towards users, the penetration of the real use of cool and effective IT solutions in the world is far from saturation. Many sectors of business and life are dominated by complex legacy systems and generic solutions such as Excel, moreover, 'pen & paper' (notebook and pen) just as confidently hold their positions. This leaves IT entrepreneurs with a huge groundwork for creating another class of solutions that are convenient for use on the one hand and effectively solve the tasks of business and life on the other, with the possibility of huge growth in various industries that traditionally do not have the greatest IT penetration.

Key investors in Leta Capital's second fund are its managing partner, Alexander Chachava, a group of private family-offices. In addition, the fund's investors included the founders of BrightBox.

The fund will invest at the late sowing stage, rounds A and B with an average check of $2 million in companies related to Eastern Europe (about 70% of the fund) and Israel (about 30% of the fund), already operating and earning in international markets. The fund will mainly focus on b2b-software startups whose founders want to build a large company are themselves bright ambitious entrepreneurs, professionals in the field of technology business.

The second fund began its investment phase in early 2018 and as of October 2018 has 8 companies in its portfolio, among which among the announced transactions there are such companies as:

• inDriver is an international passenger transportation service operating under the Real Time Deals model. InDriver, all travel conditions are determined as a result of an agreement between passengers and drivers. As of October 2018, 12 million people use the service in more than 140 cities in 9 countries of the world

• Devar is a developer of augmented reality solutions for the print industry with offices in the USA, Europe and China
• Bllush is a social content delivery system for European fashion and interior design retail.

We invest in business software developers with a focus on the most promising markets, where software is growing dynamically, creating a new market or replacing the "old" one. We are interested in projects in the field of business analytics, "Big Data" analysis, based on machine learning technology and artificial intelligence, to optimize, replace traditional business processes or robotize business. We invest in companies operating in the international market, having a product and sales in 3-4 countries.

Company portfolio

As of January 2018, Leta Capital has 12 projects in its portfolio.

2017

Investing in inDriver passenger service

In September 2017, Leta Capital invested $5 million in InDriver. After entering the American market, inDriver raised another $10 million from Leta Capital. Read more here.

Leta Capital I Venture Fund Formation

Leta Capital invests mainly in companies created by Russian-speaking entrepreneurs and having development centers in the post-Soviet space. To develop this strategy in 2017, LETA Capital formed another venture capital fund - LETA Capital I - with a volume of $50 million.

Exits from projects

Leta Capital made 3 exits in 2017.

2014: Investment in the bright box

In November 2014, Leta Capital announced an investment in the international bright box IT company. The total investment amounted to $1.5 million. Read more here.

2012: Foundation Creation

Leta Group, a management and investment company in the field of advanced information technology, announced in May 2012 the creation of its own venture capital investment fund - Leta Capital.

Leta Capital Venture Fund is a private, non-public private equity fund. The fund does not attract external sources to fund its projects. Leta Capital is formed on revenues from the net income of companies included in the Leta group of companies and finances companies in exchange for participation in capital.

Since 2007, Leta Group has been actively investing in IT-Business. But earlier investments were carried out either in the form of the acquisition of companies with their entry into the group, or through the opening of new directions. The first experience of structured investments was the creation of a microinvestment fund. The goal of this project was to support the creation and accelerated launch of high-quality software for a wide range of users. Funding for the fund was directed to small domestic companies and individuals.

Also since 2008 Leta Group has started international operations. The Group has its subsidiaries in India (Bombay) and the United States (Silicon Valley and New York) and operates in 10 other countries. All investments were successful, and now Leta Group has a number of successfully functioning foreign assets, which, among other things, are engaged in supporting investment activities, the group said.

A feature of Leta Capital is that the fund is founded not by financial structures, but by an IT company that perfectly understands the real needs of startups, since back in 2003 Leta itself was such a startup, the Leta Group emphasized. The foundation's work is based on the understanding that new projects need not only money, but also other support. Unlike many other funds, Leta GIG relies not just on financial investment, but on the provision of really necessary services.

Since its launch in early 2012, venture capital fund LETA GIV has placed more than $8mn. in a number of significant projects, such as: DisplAir, HamsterSoft, Будист.ру, BaltoStorage, etc. All investments are made from own funds earned by LETA Group. Projects are also selected by LETA Capital. The strategy of investing own funds fully justified itself at the first stage of the fund's development. At the first stage, the fund was able to choose those projects in which startups could receive additional competencies.