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.

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Фото: 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."

2025

The penultimate founder, Evgeny Lachkov, left the NCC co-owners

As it became known to TAdviser, on July 10, the penultimate founder Yevgeny Lachkov left the founders of the National Computer Corporation (NCC). Since May 2022, he remained a share of 10%, which he lost to the majority shareholder Denis Frolov (aka the majority shareholder of the Astra group), whose share in this regard was increased from 80% to 90%. Read more here.

Appointment as CEO of NCC

As TAdviser discovered, at the end of July, the majority shareholder of the Astra group Denis Frolov took the post of general director of the National Computer Corporation (NCC). This was preceded by the withdrawal from the founders of the NCC of its penultimate founder Yevgeny Lachkov, who got rid of the 10% share that migrated to Denis Frolov - he now owns NCC by 90%, according to data in the Kontur. Focus database. Another 10% in the authorized capital of the NCC belongs to Leonid Goldenberg.

Earlier, Denis Frolov had already tried to become the head of the NCC, replacing at that time Alexandra Kalinina its co-founder. But that attempt took place against the background of the company's division and was unsuccessful: the Arbitration Court Moscow in 2021 declared the appointment of Denis Frolov as head of the NCC invalid^[2]

But this time there are no obstacles to work as CEO of NCC, since the issues of ownership of the company have already been settled between the co-founders. Alexander Kalinin himself recently spoke in detail in a large interview with TAdviser about what served as the prerequisites for the division of the NCC, and how it went. Read more here.

Denis Frolov replaced Yevgeny Zatsinin, who headed the company since February 2023, as general director of NCC. The latter in July 2025 also vacated the post of general director at Systematics Group JSC, which he held in parallel with the leading position in the NCC.

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