Private Equity Russia

Alexander Samonov,  former co-owner of the supermarket chain “Kopeika” has announced that he is seeking investment and strategic partners for the creation of an investment fund for the construction of data centers in Russia.

Samonov has informed Kommersant that he will be investing $15 million personally and hopes to reach a total investments into the fund of $100 million.  They aim to secure an additional $100 million of debt financing.

They estimate they will be building around 6 data centers at planned financing levels.

American graphics card leader Nvidia signed a deal today with Russia’s Cognitive Technologies, a producer of image recognition and document handling software.

This is the first time that a major international IT corporation has signed such an open-ended cooperative deal with a Russian company, according to RBC. Ordinarily, it said,  firms would merely opt to license or purchase the intellectual property and continue its development abroad.

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