Page 10 - bne_Tech_01_2021

Investment
January 2021 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
Investors in the new fund include the European Investment Fund, tech corporations and Bulgarian investors, according to the firm. It expects the final close by 2Q21.
Having raised the money, LAUNCHub Ventures plans to finance 25 startups in the coming four years, with initial investments in the €500,000 to €2mn range. Over half of the fund will be kept for follow-on rounds for successful portfolio companies.
Within the tech sector, LAUNCHub is interested in a range segments including fintech, software as a service (SaaS), AI, digital health, blockchain and many others.
LAUNCHub plans to invest a quarter of the fund in Romanian startups, Ziarul Financiar daily reported. Rumen Iliev, partner at LAUNCHub, told the Romanian daily that Romania the largest
VTB to acquire 44.8% stake in RTKM cloud and data centre business for RUB35bn
Rostelecom announced on December 24 that VTB, which on our estimates currently owns c. 18%
of Rostelecom’s share capital both directly and
via Telecom Investments, would be the strategic partner in the joint development of Rostelecom Data Centres (RTK-DC), its subsidiary that operates data centres and cloud assets.
VTB Bank will invest RUB35bn ($472mn) in RTK-DC to acquire a 44.8% stake. According
to Rostelecom, the transaction multiple implies a 2020E EV/EBITDA of 7.8x. The parties expect to close the deal before YE20. The companies also see an IPO for RTK-DC as possible within the next three years.
market in the region and the most strategically important for LAUNCHub.
"From the new fund, we have already invested in Romania. We poured money in FintechOS together with GapMinder almost two years ago in the seed series, and we followed up for the A-series and hopefully soon for the B series as well. FintechOS is one of the most promising companies in the whole region," said Iliev.
Among LAUNCHub’s other portfolio companies are US-Bulgarian startup Gtmhub, which raised
a $30mn series B funding round led by US venture capital firm Insight earlier this month.
It also recently led a $4.5mn funding round for property tech startup Giraffe360 alongside Hoxton Ventures. Giraffe360, which offers a robotic camera for property sellers, was launched in Riga but is now based in London.
Rostelecom aims to use the funds received in the transaction for debt repayments and investments into RTK-DC, including the further development of its regionally distributed data centre network and new cloud solutions.
RTK-DC is the leader on the Russian data centre market with a 25% share (by number of racks)
as well as on the cloud/IaaS markets with a 26% share (by revenue). The business operates 12,200 racks. Rostelecom expects RTK-DC’s revenue to reach RUB26bn this year, with an EBITDA margin of 40%. According to Rostelecom CEO Mikhail Oseevsky, the company expects RTK-DC to deliver double-digit growth.