Prostor Capital

Prostor Capital is founded in 2011 by group of private Russian investors. One of co-founders and co-investors of Fund is Leonid Reiman, the famous Russian entrepreneur heading the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation from 1999 to 2008. Among investors of Merkulov Sergey Nikolaevich fund, the co-founder there are IBS companies.

For November, 2015 the managing director of Fund is Alexey Solovyov. Is responsible for the general management with management company of fund, partner relation and the companies of the industry, the organization and coordination of work of Management company and Investment committee of fund. Keeps several investment transactions.

Portfolio of fund

In a portfolio of Fund of 14 companies (November, 2015), among them:

Dnevnik.ru is the educational social network for pupils, their parents, teachers and administrations of schools integrating in itself the mainframe on management of school educational process (lesson schedules, electronic diaries, class books, homeworks) both additional services and applications (distance learning, SMS notifications, a media library, carrying out tenders and the Olympic Games). The Russian developer company and software provider for creation of a common information space of health care of the region, full-function solving of tasks of automation of treatment-and-prophylactic and pharmaceutical institutions, the personified accounting of delivery of health care.

Dulton Media is the Russian IT company which created the online platform providing to clients of B2B and B2C of the solution on management and monetization of video. On the basis of this Dulton Media platform brought to the Russian online video market of 2 unique products: YaTV online project, Russian analog of Livestream.com, and Eagle.Platform online video platform, Russian analog of Brightcove.

Umisoft - UMI.CMS producer, one of the most popular management systems for the websites in the Russian market. In addition to the boxed solution, the company gives an opportunity of creation of the website or online store "in a cloud" using UMI.ru service.

Infratel - the developer of corporate solutions which allow to organize the multifunction geographically distributed contact centers and to integrate them with corporate information systems (CRM ERP etc.).

Evrika - since 2010 specializes in development and management of Internet products of pharmaceutical and medical orientation. The flagman project - a professional information and education resource for doctors of Эврика.ру with audience more than 49,000 specialists. The company developed a specialized technology platform for life-long medical online formation of ЦНМО.РФ and implements projects on remote education of doctors and medics. In 2015 merged assets with the Vitaportal online resource developing the personalized online services in the field of health and medicine for wide audience. The supervisory board of the company includes one of the most famous international investors medicine Esther Dyson and the founder of Life Sciences Angel Network and the founder of Medscape.com Peter Frishauf. Vitaportal is a Winner of Runet Prize of 2011 in the Health and Rest nomination.

SofTrust - developer of the medical information system TrustMed, the tool for upgrade of regional health care.

CPA Exchange is the automated service for placement advertizing online. Service buys numerous channels of traffic (media, mobile, mail, SMM affiliated) and chooses for the clients the most effective platforms in terms of target audience for placement advertizing online. As a result users pay for "lead" - result in the form of certain useful effects.

Smart Checkout is service of targeted advertizing campaigns for buyers of retail networks. Service using a hardware and software system which obtains information on structure of the current check and the ID card of the regular customer and compares them with the set criteria of a sex, age, the history of purchases with further printing of the targeted advertizing offer.

Car-fin is an online service on purchase of cars on credit with share repurchase and without. In May, 2014 the company already denied existence of the project in own portfolio.

Federal Finance Group is the Russia's first service for issue of Internet passports which renders services in identification and verification of users of Internet resources for the purpose of confirmation of the personality. Each client can register Internet nationality and receive the electronic document opening in the future access to a set online of services.

Credit Cards Online is the portal about credit cards providing to Internet users the comprehensive information about offers of the Russian banks with a possibility of the subsequent execution of the request for credit products online.

Platiza is the Internet service offering users an opportunity instantly and without documents to receive a microloan with transfer of money on the card or an Internet purse. Loans are issued in the amount of 1,000 up to 15,000 rubles for a period of one day. For June, 2014, it is the unique project capable at the same time to solve a number of financial problems.

AdMoment - developer of the RTB platform for holding advertizing campaigns in mobile applications which allows to select in the automatic mode for advertisers the most effective applications in terms of target audience for advertizing.

Penxy - developer of mobile applications for carrying out and record of the live presentations. The application records the speaker's voice on the built-in microphone of the mobile device and automatically imposes on it commands for switching of slides. Using Penxy the speaker receives high-quality record of the performance that strongly saves time, efforts and finance.

Parameters of investments

The fund is focused on highly profitable investments into dynamically growing companies on IT and the Internet the markets. Investment focus of Fund – the projects which are on the stages of steady growth (a round And above) having a finished technology product and quickly growing base of clients or users. These are the Russian IT and the Internet of the company with big local sales market or the international potential interested in external investments for an exit to a new stage of development. The fund considers the projects aiming to attract a round from $1 in size to $10 million.

For the choice the companies from a technology component in the field of new financial and advertizing services, cloud computing, projects in the field of the innovation education and digital medicine are priority.

History

2013

Declaration of plans of investment into 5-7 companies until the end of the year

In July, 2013 it was announced that until the end of 2013 Prostor Capital it intends to invest in 5-7 companies in target segments. Range of investments – from $1 to $10 million in everyone. If the size of required investments will exceed $1.5 million, transactions will perform in partnership with others to market participants. In addition to expansion of the current clusters the Fund is going to enter the new markets among which the services having as online, and offline a component and also social banking. At present search of investment attractive companies and negotiations with a number of commands is conducted. The planned portfolio size until the end of 2013 – about 15 companies.

Part of transactions of fund was already implemented within the syndicated alliances with the leading players of the venture market of Russia among which there are Runa Capital, EDventure Holdings (Esther Dyson's fund), Fast Lane Ventures. The policy of syndicating is strategically priority for Fund as allows to reduce risks for investors and to increase quality of examination for commands. The total cost of a portfolio of fund increases on average by 35% a year, at the same time a number of the companies show to 100% growth annually.

Then it was announced that at the beginning of 2014 the Prostor Capital I command intends to start creation of Prostor Capital II. In addition to current, among potential investors of new fund there are 8-10 Russian and international partners. The planned volume of Prostor Capital II – $60 million.

Investment of $2 million into Smart Checkout

On October 16, 2013 it became known that the Prostor Capital venture fund invested about $2 million in the Smart Checkout project developed by Open Retail company.

Alexey Solovyov, the managing director of Prostor Capital, comments: "We investigate long ago a segment which we conditionally call "offline + online". It is about projects in which business model both components are put that gives effective synergy of business processes and cost reduction. For example, the online store of footwear where the buyer orders footwear via the website can be its good example, and to take away it comes independently on a warehouse of shop. Such approach gives huge economy on logistics and advertizing actions. From Smart Checkout we found not only the model corresponding to these parameters, but also the project, revolutionary for the advertizing market, which considerably changes idea of opportunities of targeting of advertizing and is unique in own way at the moment in a case. Potential of this segment is huge".

"The volume of the Russian market of indirect advertizing (BTL) in 2012 was 80.4 billion rubles that is 18% more, than a similar indicator of 2011, - Alexander Shurov, the director of Open Retail comments. – And this digit constantly grows. However in the conditions of competitive struggle gain traditional instruments of marketing glitch. The modern consumer is so spoiled by various options of drawing attention that just ceases to react to them. It needs to be surprised and involved constantly in interaction with a brand and to convey information most selectively. This problem is solved by our system. We are sure that Smart Checkout will be able to repeat success of the western analog – Catalina Marketing companies which now (October, 2013) influence purchases of 75% of consumers in the USA. Together with Prostor Capital we will be able to expand this new format of communication with consumers in the Russian retail, having connected new retail chain stores to the project, and in the future to make it available in all territory of Russia".

2012: Investments into Vitaportal

In October, 2012 Prostor Capital jointly Esther Dyson, the famous angel investor, invested in Vitaportal — the online project devoted to health and medicine. Vitaportal entered the market in 2011. As well as other startups started by the FastLane group it is created on the basis of the checked international model, the American WebMD.com portal — the most popular online of the resource devoted to health among the American citizens.

In 2013 the Runa Capital venture fund joined number of investors of Vitaportal. Runa Capital, Prostor Capital and Fastlane merged a part of the assets: within the transaction two resources — Vitaportal and Zdorovyeonlayn (developer company of the medical platform and electronic medical record, an asset of Runa Capital) were integrated. As a result of merge the Internet company managing the largest online services in the field of health in Runet was formed.

In July, 2015 the company began process merge to the Eureka Group, specializing in work with professional medical audience on the Internet (more than 49,000 specialists). The purpose of consolidation of assets — to increase the potential of development of each of them and to create the company — the leader of a "health and medicine" segment in Runet. According to terms of transaction of a share of shareholders of Vitaportal and Eureka Group in the united company are separated on a parity basis. It was expected that on the horizon of three years the cost of the united company can be $20 million. Meanwhile, for December, 2019 the audience of vitaportal.ru made less than 50 thousand people a month.

2011: Reyman and Merkulov create fund

Prostor Capital is founded in 2011 by group of private investors among whom there are Leonid Reiman and Sergey Merkulov. The fund is focused on investments into quickly growing companies occupied in different highly potential segments of IT and the Internet of the market. The total amount of Fund was $20 million.

The stated purpose of fund — to give the chance to portfolio companies to become the leader in the segment and to create the business which is of interest to the Russian and western strategic investors and private equity funds specializing in late growth phases, such as expansionstage and pre-IPO.

Was declared that cooperation of Prostor Capital with portfolio companies assumes not only financial, but also expert support on the following the directions:

• development corporate and applied strategy (marketing, product, etc.);
• selection of supervision manpower;
• GR;
• consultation in the field of finance and the right, etc.

The interests of Prostor Capital were focused on investments into the companies which are at an early stage of development, coming or already stepped breakeven point. These are the companies which already have a finished technology product and the initial customer base.

The fund considers the projects aiming to attract from $1 to $10 million most of which often is the first after round seed. If the required volume of investments exceeds $1.5 million, investments are performed within the syndicated transactions jointly by venture partners – the Russian and western funds. The strategy of the syndicated alliances is directed both to increase in the amounts of financing, and to gain of expert support of investment objects and also decrease risks for all participants of investment process.

Fonda, main for portfolio construction, is cluster strategy: the companies having the general industry specialization and economically closely connected integrate in a niche - "cluster". Among priority clusters:

• cloud computing for small and medium business
• new technologies in the Internet to advertizing
• software products and services for medicine and education
• applications and games for mobile platforms and social networks
• the services having both IT and/or the Internet, and essential offline a component

Was declared that the choice of the subsequent objects for investments happens by selection of projects of profile specialization for further expansion of clusters. Within a cluster there is an exchange of experience between the companies, expert and technology support, formation of uniform criteria for evaluation of the companies and the market.

Awards

In February, 2013 it is included by the Hopes&Fears edition in the TOP list of 10 best venture funds of Russia