Almaz Capital is a global VC fund headquartered in Portola Valley,

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investing in early stage, capital efficient technology companies in high-growth sectors. Almaz Capital focuses on disruptive

deep tech Deep technology (deep tech) is a classification of organization, or more typically startup company, with the expressed objective of providing technology solutions based on substantial scientific or engineering challenges. They present challenges ...

companies in b2b software space, including AI/ ML and

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applications, IoT and Edge Computing Enablers,

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, etc. Since its foundation the firm's portfolio has included about 50 companies, with more than 300 million US dollars invested in them. The fund's investors include

European Investment Fund The European Investment Fund (EIF), established in 1994, is a financial institution for the provision of finance to SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), headquartered in Luxembourg. It is part of the European Investment Bank Group. It ...

(EIF),

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

, the

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, shortened to EBRD ( French: ''Banque européenne pour la reconstruction et le développement'' or ''BERD''), is an international financial institution founded in 1991 in Paris. As a multilat ...

(EBRD), and

International Finance Corporation The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution headquartered in Washington, D.C. and a member of the World Bank Group that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private ...

(IFC), a member of the

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. Almaz Capital is headquartered in

Portola Valley, California Portola Valley is an incorporated List of municipalities in California, town in San Mateo County, California, United States. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, Portola Valley is a small, wealthy com ...

, has an office in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and representative offices in offices in Kyiv (

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

), Warsaw (

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

) and other Central and Eastern European countries. Almaz Capital's partners are Alexander Galitsky, Geoffrey Baehr, Pavel Bogdanov, Charles E. Ryan and Aniruddha Nazaré.

History

In 2004,

approached Alexander Galitsky, former scientist and technological entrepreneur who was appointed as president of the first Tech Tour in East Europe — a specialized forum in which international investors visited countries with growing venture markets and got to know local

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...

, and offered him financing to establish a

venture fund Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number o ...

to invest into East European

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to ...

companies. Galitsky selected the ''bridge fund model'' and has focused on investing in and connecting Eastern European startups creating promising technologies for global markets with western companies that can benefit from engineering resources in Eastern Europe. Alexander Galitsky founded Almaz Capital in 2008 together with three partners: Charles Emmitt Ryan, founder of , senior advisor at

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (, ) is a Germany, German multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. ...

and former CEO of Deutsche Bank Russia; Peter Loukianoff who was working for Alloy Ventures and Pavel Bogdanov. Geoffrey Baehr, a former General Partner at US Venture Partners (USVP), who used to curate joint projects with Galitsky in the 1990s when he was CNO at

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

later joined Almaz Capital as advisor. In 2011, Loukianoff resigned from Almaz Capital and Baehr became fund's fourth general partner.

Funds

Almaz Capital Fund I was backed in 2008 with a capital of $72 mln. Among its investors, Almaz Capital I attracted $30 million from

and more $20 million were given by UFG partners. After a year, a third investor appeared in the Fund — Еuropean Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) who invested around $20 mln. The first fund’s activity was focused on the search for interesting projects within the territory of CIS countries to be in demand in the global market. In 2013, Almaz Capital II was established. It raised around $200 million from its limited partners. Cisco remained Almaz Capital's major investor in fund II with other major investment coming from UFG, EBRD and the

. In an interview for the

Vedomosti ( rus, Ведомости, p=ˈvʲedəməsʲtʲɪ, ) is a Russian-language business daily newspaper published in Moscow. History was founded in 1999 as a joint venture between Dow Jones, who publishes ''The Wall Street Journal''; Pearson, ...

newspaper, Galitsky noted that Almaz Capital II attracted money from several

family office A family office is a privately held company that handles investment management and wealth management for a wealthy family, generally one with at least $50–100 million in investable assets, with the goal being to effectively grow and transfer ...

s. The second fund excluded Russia’s originated companies from the list of new investments and expanded the geography of its activity to cover not only CIS countries but also some regions of East Europe. Almaz Fund’s III with a capital of $191 mln final close was in 2021. EBRD still remained the main investor enriched by European International Fund (EIF). The geographical focus mostly moved to the Eastern European countries, although CIS is still in the scope of interest of the Fund.

References

{{Reflist Financial services companies established in 2008 Companies based in California Venture capital firms of the United States Financial services companies based in California American companies established in 2008 2008 establishments in California Portola Valley, California Finance in Ukraine Finance in Poland