Page 9 - bne_Tech_0809_2018

Investment
August/September 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Private equity deals in CEE hit a record €3.5bn in 2017
Private equity and venture capital investments into companies from Central and Eastern Europe reached a record level of €3.5bn in 2017, up 113% y/y, Invest Europe reported on August 22.
The amount invested was 40% more than the previous investment peak in the region, set in 2008 before the onset of the global financial crisis, according to the association’s Central and Eastern Europe Private Equity Statistics 2017 report.
The favourite investment sector was consumer goods and services, which attracted about two- thirds of all the invested capital. The technology
industry was in second place with 11%.
Poland dominates the region as the top destina- tion for private investors by country, accounting for 71% of all the investments in monetary terms. The next most attractive were Romanian, Hungar- ian and Latvian companies with approximately the same levels of investment.
Amongst the success stories from the region in- clude the Czech Avast Software, which debuted on the London Stock Exchange this year and the Dino Polska food chain from Poland, which debuted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) last year.
Russia budgets $18bn for digital economy roadmap, funding unclear
Russia's government is budgeting RUB1.2 trillion ($18bn) of spending in 2019-2024 for implementing the national 'Digital Economy' roadmap, Vedomosti daily reported on August 20 citing internal memos of the Finance Ministry.
Following the Kremlin's urge to prioritise the development of IT and other new technologies, the government started a special working group in 2017 that developed a list of initiatives to facilitate the rollout of the Digital Economy programme. The initiative was further expanded in President's Vladimir Putin's May Decree.
However, so far out of RUB1.2 trillion a little over RUB120bn for 2019-2021 has actually been funded, according to Vedomosti. For 2018 the spending on the roadmap is set at negligible RUB8.4bn. The
sources for non-budget and private investment in the program are still not determined.
Reportedly digital infrastructure, such as commu- nication networks, data centres, 5G networks roll- out, etc is the top-spending item in the plan with RUB628bn. Previously Russian state-controlled inte- grated telecom major Rostelecom estimated the cost of Digital Economy information technology infra- structure at RUB427bn for the next three years.
The government reportedly plans to spend RUB233bn for IT public governance and supervi- sion solutions, RUB139bn for human resources and training, RUB125bn for new technology de- velopment (AI, Big Data, quantum tech), only RUB18bn for digital security, and RUB1.5bn for developing the legal and regulatory base.