By Ivan Anderzhanov
US private equity fund Siguler Gruff is investing $250m in a high-tech hub dubbed Russia’s ‘answer to Silicon Valley’.
Siguler Guff, which has over $8.5bn in assets under management, made the investment public after meeting with Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev has been on a charm offensive with foreign fund managers and venture capitalists in an effort to convince them of his plans to spur economic modernisation, improve the country’s investment climate and reduce its dependence on oil and gas.
Siguler Guff, which controls the Russian Partners private equity fund, becomes the first foreign private equity firm to get involved in the high-tech project.
Judging by the comments from foreign funds, investors are not exactly banging on their door to follow Siguler’s example.
Don Wood, managing director at a $6 billion venture fund Draper Fisher Jurvetson, told Reuters his advice to Medvedev is that the “the government needs to get out of the way” to let entrepreneurship grow.
Other foreign private equity funds active in Russia have felt stymied by bureaucracy, corruption and the unexpected arrival of the good old ‘tax police’.
