Frolov Denis Vladimirovich

Frolov Denis Vladimirovich

Biography

For more than seven years he worked at Wimm-Bill-Dann, where he grew from an investment analyst to a development director.

When purchasing lighting systems for food production, Denis noted that the demand for LED lamps is growing in the world, Forbes wrote. Having sold apartments and taken loans with partner Ilya Sivtsev in 2009, he began importing KSS lamps, launching the Varton company and the Gauss trademark. In 2010, he began to carry LED lamps to Russia.

In November 2012, the owners of Varton bought an abandoned agricultural machinery plant in Bogoroditsk, Tula Region, to launch their own production of LED lamps. Taking into account the repair, the site cost them, according to Forbes, 250 million rubles. The same amount was spent in three years on creating a laboratory, developing a lineup and marketing.

In 2013, production was launched. Its revenue in 2015 reached 1.3 billion rubles.

In 2017, Denis Frolov agreed to acquire a majority stake in the Russian Basic Information Technologies research and production association (RusBITech), the developer of the Russian operating system ( OS) Astra Linux, and in 2021 - to acquire 80% of the National Computer Corporation, which includes the Systematics group ( the deal was closed in the spring of 2022). In addition, in 2021, Varton acquired Baikal Electronics.

2022: Joining the list of the largest IT billionaires in Russia

In August 2022, TAdviser compiled the first list of the largest IT billionaires in Russia. Denis Frolov took seventeenth place in it (more).

2024: Net worth - $1.1 billion

Denis Frolov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Astra Group of Companies, became a dollar billionaire after a sharp increase in the value of shares in a software developer. This became known at the end of March 2024.

According to Forbes, on March 22, 2024, the Astra quotation rate at the Moscow Exchange was 596.4 rubles, and six days later the price rose to more than 700 rubles. Frolov owns 151.6 million shares, which even taking into account the adjustment of the exchange rate is 102 billion rubles, or $1.1 billion. By 15:00 Moscow time on March 29, 2024, Astra securities cost 682 rubles apiece.

source = Astra Group

The publication notes that Denis Frolov became the second Russian dollar billionaire from among software developers after Evgeny Kaspersky, who owns Kaspersky Lab.

Astra held an IPO in October 2023. As part of the listing of the group, Denis Frolov sold 8.4 million shares of the company and earned 2.8 billion rubles before taxes, according to Forbes. The magazine adds that Astra software is used at critical information infrastructure facilities, in executive authorities and in state corporations.^[1]

On March 29, 2024, Forbes also drew attention to the fact that Denis Frolov entered the capital of Studio Granat LLC. Other co-owners of the company are its co-founders - CEO Dmitry Grachev (42%) and Natalya Eprikyan (28%). According to the publication, the owner of the developer of the operating system Astra Linux plans to create a full-length film for family viewing and other projects, the total investment in which is estimated at "hundreds of millions of rubles."

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