Sunctions Barrows: billionaires from Russia buy up the startups of Silicon Valley

As it became known to The Bell, Vladimir Putin warned businessmen against investment in the United States. However, many do it. Among the active investors in Silicon Valley, we found many Russian billionaires - including Senator Suleiman Kerimov and the founder of the legendary "Rosbulding" Sergey Gordeev.

Photo: Martin Jambon / Flickr / ( CC by 2.0 )

Silicon Valley is a house for the most expensive startups in the world. About $ 8 billion transactions are made here in a year. The Bell begins to publish a series about Russian money in Silicon Valley and now they relate to it. Our first article about those who like to risk them in a large way-Russian billionaires.

Non Grata investments

Over the past three months, Vladimir Putin met twice with the largest Russian businessmen. At a meeting in September, the president warned them that investments in the United States were unsafe and undesirable due tothe risk of sanctions , three sources close to the participants in the event told The Bell. It didn’t sound right, but the message was like this: “Guys, it is better to stop sending money there: firstly, they can freeze and select everything, and secondly-your investments will work against us,” one of them retells. According to another, the president said that due to political disagreements with the United States, business may be “between a hammer and a gravity”. It was not a direct ban, rather, the conversation was that “we should be comfortable in our country,” the businessman says. In December, at a meeting with the president, specific methods of returning capital were already discussing.

Russian investments flowed in the United States long before relations between the countries once again deteriorated. “In the early 2000s, the entire Russian economy was like a venture business-a stick a stick, it will germinate,” the former vice-president of Sberbank Viktor Orlovsky, who is now managing the second fund in the valley, is nostalgic. But now, for investors who want to receive more than 20% per annum, the choice is between venture investments in the West and the world of cryptocurrencies - in Russia, nothing has left for them for a long time, the GVA Capital manager Pavel Cherkashin, who moved to the valley in 2014, states.

Spit in the sea

Before the scandal of Russian intervention in the American elections, the idea of ​​investing in the valley looked extremely attractive: “You can sit at the other end of the world, make decisions on the transaction for three hours and not worry about the safety of your assets,” the partner of one of the American funds with Russian roots describes.

A few years ago, in the wake of universal “rejuvenation”, Russian participants in the Forbes list began to invest in Uber one after another. “To invest money in such a company is the same as spitting in the sea, there is already too much of all, so that someone is seriously interested in the personality of the next investor,” laughs a partner of one of the international venture funds.

In total, Uber has already attracted $ 14 billion, among the Russian investors, Usmanov and Co-owners of Alfa Groups, led by Mikhail Friedman , were noted-the latter announced that they invested $ 200 million in the company in early 2016. At that time, Uber was already considered the most expensive startup in the world and was supposed to confirm this status during an IPO.

But for more than a year now, such scandals have been shaking the company that there can be no talk of any placement. Before them, the startup was estimated at the record $ 68 billion, the last round of investments, according to NYT, may pass, already based on an estimate of $ 48 billion. Uber reputation instead of the founder of Travis Kalanik has to restore the new CEO, the IPO has moved by 18-36 months. Russian investors risk him simply not to wait. Next year, the United States shoulddetermine the circle of businessmen whom the American authorities will consider close to the Kremlin. The “black list” who has fallen may threaten sanctions.

Suleiman Kerimov did not invest too well in Snapchat. Photo by ITAR-TASS/ Stanislav Krasilnikov

Another example of an unsuccessful attempt to jump into the already outgoing train is the placement of SNAP, the owner of the Snapchat messenger is super-popular with American teenagers. Investors who missed multibillion -dollar transactions of technological companies, this year was eagerly awaited by her IPO. In the calculation of him, both the Russian senator and billionaire Suleiman Kerimov , who is now unchanged in France due to suspicions of money laundering and non-payment of taxes, invested in the company. Three managers of funds told about his investments in Snap The Bell and confirmed two of his acquaintances. One of them heard that Kerimov invested about $ 200 million in this company and agreed not to sell her papers within a year. The placement was successful, but after it the quotes collapsed, turning Snap into the main disappointment of investors this year.

It is important for wealthy Russian investors not only to earn money, but to “leave a trace in space - to invest so that Ah at once!”, Alexander Turkot, manager of the Maxfield Capital Foundation, shares observations. It is rather emotional investments than rational, he believes.

Go around

Another former senator and the owner of the construction group Peak Sergey Gordeev decided that if you have invested in Uber, it was better in Chinese and two at once. As the businessman himself told The Bell, a few years ago he invested in the Chinese unit of Uber, as well as his local competitor - a service for ordering a taxi DIDI Chuxing. In the summer of 2016, Uber decided that he could not win the competition in China and the companies united.

The main owner of the building group, PIC, Sergei Gordeev invested $ 10 million in Hyperloop. Photo: Sergey Fadeichev / TASS

Immediately after the transaction, the resulting company was estimated at $ 35 billion. Judging by the fact that after a year and a half it costs $ 56 billion, Gordeev broke the real Kush. The businessman himself does not hide that he is very pleased and waits for the company will conduct an IPO next year. He does not call his investments in DIDI, but he says that they usually make up to $ 10 million, and only in some cases several tens of millions.

Another Russian investor in DIDI called himself Usmanov. In the valley, his guide was Yuri Milner, who, after a deal with FASEBOOK, became the most famous venture capitalist from Russia. On the shares of the social network after her IPO in 2012, partners earned about $ 2 billion, and so far none of the Russians were repeated .

Does Gordeev have his own Milner? The businessman says that he invests in startups through the Small American Agnostic Ventures Fund about $ 100 million. Its manager Leon Zilber was one of the top managers of the Legendary Foundation of Russia Partners, which has been working in Russia since the beginning of the 1990s. At the same time, Gordeev founded the Rosbuilding company, which was one of the most active players in the real estate market in Moscow and eventually became almost synonymous with the concept of “unfriendly absorption”.

Gordeev tied with corporate conflicts in Russia, but collided with them in the valley. So far, only one of his investments in the United States was known - in 2015, the businessman invested $ 10 million in the company Hyperloop, which is developing a vacuum train invented by Ilon Mask. Gordeev claims that he “invested in the Founders” - he says that he was familiar with the founder and technical director of Hyperloop, a native of SpaceX by a brogan Bambrogan, and decided to invest in the company because he was an excellent engineer. But shortly after this, the founders of the startup quarreled among themselves. When the Bambogan left the company in 2016 with a scandal, it was too late to take his money from Hyperloop. Now Russian investors can wait for the experiment with the creation of a super -speed train.

“We have a completely Disrupting Projects [explosive projects], and there are less crazy,” Gordeev smiles. Among his other foreign investments, The Bell discovered:

• The Japanese manufacturer of the Nintendo games - and the businessman invested in the company even before its capitalization took off to Pokemon Go;
• The New York service for ordering Juno taxi-this spring, for $ 200 million it was purchased by the Israeli startup Gettaxi (except Gordeev, the Juno investor was businessman Dmitry Bosov);
• Standard Cognition, which eventually promises to replace cashiers in stores with tablets;
• Wonder is a startup that develops a kind of hybrid of the console, smartphone and media player. In addition to Gordeev, the Fund of the former head of Mail.Ru Dmitry Grishin invested in this company;
• Blue Apron is a food delivery service that this year is $ 300 million. When placed, investors estimated the company at $ 1.9 billion, but now it costs about $ 790 million.

Another adherent of technology unexpectedly turned out to be the former co-owner of the company “Wimm-Bill-Dann” Gavril Yushvil , who invested about $ 500 million in foreign startups. In 2011, he sold his share in the “Wimm-Bill-Dann” by American Pepsico for $ 1.1 billion. And quite soon numerous consultants were drawn to it. According to venture investments, these “boys” come with promising projects, he studies and decides what to invest in, says a familiar businessman.

“While everyone was fled to Uber, he was smarter and invested money in his main competitor - Lyft,” says The Bell's interlocutor. He was not embarrassed that compared to Uber Lyft always looked very reduced copy. Yushvaev invested about $ 100 million in Lyft, when the company cost $ 4 billion. Now it is estimated at almost $ 12 billion and the next year is preparing to conduct an IPO. Another successful investment was the German food delivery service from Delivery Hero restaurants. He is very happy with this topic, he is terribly pleased that he no longer has to lead a huge public company himself, says a familiar businessman.

Former co-owner of the company "Vimm-Bill-Dann" Gavril Yushril Yushvaev invested about $ 500 million in foreign startups. Photo: Itar-Tass

In the Russian media, the surname of Yushvaeva almost does not appear, but recently they remembered him for a completely different reason-in connection with a shootout in his eye to Moscow City, where one of the authoritative businessmen celebrated the anniversary. A source close to Yushvaev claims that he himself participated in this story. But can she affect his reputation in the West? When in 2002, Vimm-Bill-Dann was preparing for an IPO in New York, in the prospectus the company disclosed that in 1980, Yushvaev was convicted of robbery and served for nine years in the Soviet camp. This did not prevent investors from buying the Vimm-Bill-Dann shares for $ 200 million.

Millions against hackers

From 2011 to 2014, the total investment of Russians in American companies amounted to about $ 2 billion. And then it seemed that everything was just beginning: in 2010, Dmitry Medvedev still posed to cameras with Steve Jobs, and Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger brought to Moscow to the US capitalists from the United States.

The attitude towards Russian investments in the United States became noticeable only this year - after the scandal around the “Russian hackers” and Russia's intervention in American elections. “Neither Crimea nor Donbass even closely influenced the attitude to the Russians as accusations of Trump's help,” says the former co-owner of the RBC media holding, and now the managing partner of the investment company TMT Investment German Kaplun. “California has always supported the Democratic Party.”

2010. Medvedev and Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger discuss the possibilities of Skolkovo development. Photo: kremlin.ru

Even Yuri Milner did not escape accusations of relations with the Kremlin. After numerous publications in the American media, he had to make an open letter : “After the 2016 elections, everything changed - it suddenly turned out that in order to arouse suspicion, you have enough to be Russian,” he wrote.

Businessmen who have already left millions of dollars in the United States remains to hope for the best. “There people are smart, and they don’t read Soviet newspapers in the valley, including American“ Soviet ”newspapers. They know who invest normally, and see if a person is a real investor, ”says Gordeev.

He himself recently almost became an investor of Magic Leap - one of the most mysterious startups of Silicon Valley, the creators of which promise to make a revolution in virtual reality technologies. Without showing a single prototype, this startup managed to attract almost $ 2 billion investments and get Sundar Pichai Sundara General Director of Google General Director. The fact that Gordeev negotiated the entry into the capital of this company, The Bell was told by one of the venture capitalists working in the valley. Why the deal did not work out, Gordeev did not tell. But he, apparently, is not going to refuse investment in Western startups. The businessman calls the most promising topic preventive medicine and what is called bioinformatics, thanks to which "in the future there will be no diseases at all." One of these companies in his portfolio is the Color Genomics startup, which is engaged in genetic research on a predisposition to various types of cancer.

Despite the severity of the moment, the valley continues to attract wealthy Russians. One of the potential promising investors is the co -owner of Sheremetyevo Airport Alexander Ponomarenko, also known as the owner of the complex near Gelendzhik, who was called the Putin Palace in the media. The fact that his people have been looking for objects for investment in the United States for about six months, the Bell immediately told two residents of the valley. “Alexander Anatolyevich is studying the issue, delving into the topic, but has not yet done investments,” the representative of Ponomarenko confirmed.

Anastasia Yakreva, Svetlana Reuters, The Bell