VTB Asset Management is putting its venture capital and private equity management team back together following last months management shake up. Aidar Kaliyev has been named Head of the Department of Direct and Venture Investments at VTB Asset Management.
Unova has reported that the three VTB managing directors responsible for the bank’s venture capital activities have left the bank.
According to VTB Director of Asset Management Natalia Plugar, the three managers – Andrei Zyuzin, Sergei Morozov and Andrei Romashov, left the bank for reasons of their own career development and work on external projects.
The FT published a piece today on technology venture capital in Russia, or the lack thereof. SQ7WHTXYZE6U
Several reasons were given for the current lack of activity in technology venture capital and private equity in the Russian market, including high risks, the lack of a technology focused exchange and the lack of stock options for managers.
Alexandra Johnson, of DFJ-VTB Aurora, specifically sited the lack of good managers. Interestingly, Draper Fisher Jurveston‘s Russian JV partner VTB just announced a stock option plan worth 1% of its shares for its own top managers. It has yet to win the required state approval for the program, however.
Also name-checked were Web Media Group, which has invested $20 million in online properties, Digital Sky Technologies (of Russian social networking and Facebook fame) and Luxoft, Russia’s largest offshore programming outsourcer.
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