Page 17 - bne IntelliNews Country Report: Russia Dec17

journalists. Citing pundits from US think tanks, they underline the Kremlin’s ties with VTB and Gazprom and the use of these vehicles “for politically important and strategically important deals.”
Russian money everywhere?
It is hardly deniable that DST’s historic backer Alisher Usmanov has ties with the Russian government — especially with Prime Minister and former President Dmitry Medvedev — just like any Russianbnaire still living in Russia. A key shareholder of Mail.Ru Group, an LSE-listed company which controls most of Russia’s social networks, Usmanov has “numerous ties” with Kanton, reports the ICIJ.
It is also likely that Milner — even though he moved a long time ago to Silicon Valley, where spent about $100mn on a 25,000-square-foot house — has kept ties with his native country’s business and political elite.
Meanwhile, the ICIJ journalists did not say much about a plethora of other powerful tech companies from the US or elsewhere which have received Russian state money, directly or indirectly. Examples range from such digital superstars as Uber, Shazam and Spotify, to, oh my God, major US players in the field of data storage and online media.
Here are the most notable cases, by alphabetic order, as reported by East-West Digital News over the past six years:
Airbnb — In 2011 this startup raised $112 mn in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from DST Global, which brought $40mn in the deal.
Alibaba — In 2011, DST Global led a consortium that invested $1.6bn in exchange for a less than 5% stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant. The fund sold a portion of the Alibaba stake in 2015 — estimating the return on his investment at 500%-600% — and entirely divested its stake in late 2016 .
Clearspring Technologies (AddThis) — In 2011 the Russian state-owned fund of funds RVC participated indirectly in a $20mn round in favor of Clearspring Technologies. This US company (later rebranded to AddThis and ultimately acquired by Oracle) facilitates content sharing through social and news networks. It processes a huge volume of data about what content is viewed, shared and clicked on by users. The 2011 investment was made through Institutional Venture Partners XIII (IVP), a later-stage venture capital and growth equity firm which was joined earlier by a fully owned UK subsidiary of RVC.
Dropbox — In 2011, the popular US data storage service secured $250mn investment , a fraction of which came from Russian state coffers. The money also came through Institutional Venture Partners XIII (IVP).
Gawker Media — In early 2016, Columbus Nova Technology Partners, a California-based venture fund controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, a cquired a minority stake in this company , one of the largest media players in the USA. Gawker owns seven media brands covering politics, technology, sports, car culture and other topics. The company needed to strengthen its financial reserves as it was preparing for a costly privacy lawsuit. Vekselberg is a prominent and openly Kremlin-connected Russian billionaire. In 2010 then
17 RUSSIA Country Report December 2017 www.intellinews.com