Starta Capital

Starta Capital is a venture capital fund with offices in New York and Moscow, investing in the pre-seed and seed stages. Average investment check: $250 thousand. The fund's portfolio includes 16 companies. The main requirements for startups are the availability of technological advantage, global potential or leadership potential in its segment in Eastern Europe.

Starta Ventures

Starta Ventures group unites Starta Capital Fund I, New York accelerator Starta Accelerator, accelerator for blockchain startups Token Rockets, coworking Sputnik Space. All divisions have different investors and areas of activity, but are united by a common goal - to realize the global potential of companies with Russian-speaking founders for Starta founders and investors themselves. The mission of the Starta Accelerator program, launched in 2016, is to culturally and business adapt hi-tech startups from Russia and Eastern Europe to the United States, as well as integrate them into the investment ecosystem. Coworking Sputnik Space is a bridgehead for Eastern European companies in downtown Manhattan. In addition to the traditional hard infrastructure, participants get access to Starta networking and the opportunity to take advantage of the expertise of accelerator mentors and managing partners. In 2017, the group underwent a transformation by entering the cryptocurrency fundraising and investing in blockchain startups.

Starta Capital Fund II

Starta Capital Fund II from the Russian-American group Starta Ventures will direct up to 30% of the funds to investments in blockchain startups at the pre-ICO stage. The formation of Starta Capital Fund II begins in March, investment - in May 2018. The fund is aimed at investors with a check of $1 million. The investment period is 4-5 years. The volume of the new fund is $20 million.

The fund will invest in blockchain startups at the pre-ICO stage, when the team attracts, among other things, fiat investments in capital. The volume of investments in this area will be about 30%. Thus, additional liquidity events are added to traditional venture exits when distributing cryptographic tokens issued by startups and when selling them by the fund on exchanges.

Starta Capital Fund II is Russia's first fund with a "no management fee" model and an architecture open to new investors. The fund will operate in a hybrid mode, giving investors not only the opportunity to join the fund as an LP according to the model traditional in the venture capital industry, but also to share in individual transactions through investing in security tokens with smart contracts of individual companies.

The fund's strategy is aimed at investing in early-stage startups and assumes that the bulk of the funds will be invested in follow-on rounds of companies that have passed the Starta Accelerator program in New York. At the sowing stage, the average investment volume from the Starta group will be up to $200 thousand, in round A - up to $1 million, taking into account co-investors, the total amounts of investment rounds can be 3-5 times higher.

Garin Alexey, co-founder and general partner of Starta Ventures: 'Starta Capital Fund II is unique in its structure and investment focus - it fully reflects Starta's vision of how venture capital will work in the future. The main industry trends that we implement in the new model of the fund are hybrid co-investment, when private investors join professional venture investors, as well as synergy between the venture industry and the potential of the cryptocurrency market. Through the mechanism of syndication of transactions, we involve in the investment process capital 3-5 times more than the volume of the fund itself. The Starta Ventures group acts as a lead investor in transactions, organizing and directing capital based on its expertise. The team specializes in investing and accelerating early-stage startups since 2011, the total capitalization of more than 50 portfolio startups, based on investor estimates of the next rounds, exceeded $400 million.

For the possibility of joining separate Starta Capital Fund II transactions, co-investors, or deal-to-deal investors, will pay fee in the following amount: up to 10% setup fee and up to 15% when withdrawing from investments. The standard 2/20 scheme for the venture industry involves paying managing partners a total of 20% at the entrance (management fee 2% per year for 10 years of fund management) and 20% at the exit as carry - a bonus for success. LPs joining Starta Capital Fund II do not pay management fee, and for investors, such a model means that all their funds will be spent on investing.

In the international venture market, the trend away from the 2/20 model has already been outlined. The future is for 'no management fee' funds. Examples include the BGV II and Knight Assets funds.

History

2022: Investing in medical robot developer Expper Technologies

At the end of January 2022, it became known about investing in Expper Technologies. Members of the AngelsDeck club, the Starta Capital fund and the Liqvest co-investment platform invested in the Armenian developer of medical robots. The seeding round was led by Starta Capital and Liqvest, Healthcare Equity Angels and AiSprouts VC also took part in it. The startup plans to direct the received funding to promote its products and expand the team in the United States. More details here.

2021

Investing in medical billing software developer Collectly

In mid-September 2021, it became known about the investment of $3 million in Collected. The main investor in the round of financing was the venture fund TMT Investments. In addition, the Cabra VC fund, the company's investor from the 2017 Y Combinator issue and the S16 and Starta Capital venture funds participated in the transaction. More details here.

Investing in the Copyright Travel Marketplace YouTravel.me

In early September 2021, it became known about the investment of $1 million in YouTravel.me. The funding round was led by the Starta VC fund, which was also joined by Liqvest.com, Mission Gate and several individual investors. Among the latter was business angel Bas Godska, who also helps the team enter new markets. More details here.

Investing in Andata web analytics service

On August 5, 2021, Andata announced the attraction of $900 thousand in investments from the venture capital fund Starta Capital, the Liqvest platform, business angels Sergey Dashkov, Denis Beloglazov, Nikolai Guzakov, Sergey Nikulin and members of the Angelsdeck club. More details here.

2020

Investing in a Russian flying motorcycle developer HoverSurf

On December 2, 2020, HoverSurf, the developer of Russia's first flying motorcycle, announced the attraction of investments. Entrepreneur Ismail Akhmetov, Qiwico-founder Sergey Solonin, Starta Ventures Foundation, angel investors Nikolay Belykh, Evgeny Medvednikov and Maxim Korobov invested in the project. The volume of investments is not called, but the estimated value of the startup is known - $30 million. More details here.

Investing $300 thousand in Stringershub together with business angels

On March 2, 2020, Starta Ventures announced that, startup Stringershub connecting stringers on the online platform and international media companies to quickly create video reports, it attracted a sowing round with a total volume of $500 thousand with a company estimate of $2.5 million. Together with a pool of its co-investors - business angels, the Starta Ventures group invested $300 thousand and became the lead investor of the round. More. here

2019: Partial exit from the Online Patent project

On December 9, 2019, Starta Capital announced that JSC National Intellectual Property Registry"," which owns the deposit and object protection service, intellectual property n’RIS has become the owner of a controlling stake in the company "." Online Patent As part of the transaction, partial exit from the project was carried out by its investors - RWM Capital, Starta Softline Venture Partners Capital (Starta Ventures group), Moscow Seed Fund as well as private investors Mikhail Shtepan and Nikolay Belykh. More. here