Russia is leading growth in venture-capital funds raised

Russia has seen a venture investing boom in its high technology in the past six years, {{{*}}} The Wall Street Journal reports citing findings by Dow Jones VentureSource.

As a result, the Russian venture capital sector now ranks Europe’s fourth largest investor in its own high technology industries, according to Dow.

Reporting the latest Dow findings, The Wall Street Journal emphasizes that “the dramatic growth in venture-capital funds raised by Russia is striking. Just two years ago, Russia was behind Ireland, Finland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden. In 2006, according to the VentureSource data, Russia raised just 5 million euros. Over the last four years the amount raised has gone up by nearly a factor of 10, from 25.9 million euros in 2009, 37.76 million in 2010 to 185.79 million in 2011 and 236.55 million last year.”

As of 2012, the top five nations were, in order: the U.K. (€867.46 million), France (€508.76 million), Germany (€431 million), Russia (€236.55 million) and Sweden (€88.93 million).

“Semiconductor deals have been removed from the data, because the total number of deals isn’t that large,” the report says. Investments in biopharma companies have not been taken into account, either.

“All up, the data cover business support services, consumer information services, media and content, retailers, travel and leisure, communications and networking, electronics and computer hardware, and software,” the WSJ quotes the Dow report.

In 2012, the European countries raised a total of 4.4 billion euros in venture investing, a 9% y/y decline.

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