Page 24 - bne IntelliNews Georgia country report November 2017

Eastern Europe
November 11, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 24
companies’ operations and management.
DST Global divested its position in Facebook in 2013 and in Twitter in 2014, shortly after each of those companies went public. At that time, Putin had a much clearer understanding of the politi- cal impact of social networks, following a period of political unrest in Russia in which opponents made a large use of them. In addition, the US- Russia relationship had deteriorated, so why in this context would Putin have let Milner loose any chance to maintain his alleged influence on Face- book and Twitter? In 2015, DST Global launched its fifth fund without any Russian backers — in contrast with the previous DST funds, — confirm-
ing in a way the international dimension of the fund rather than alleged Kremlin ties.
The rise of Russian, or Russia-connected inves- tors on the international tech scene has more to do with the globalization of the venture market than with Kremlin plots. True, the Russian gov- ernment has shown over the past few years a growing willingness to exert a global influence
in the field of technologies — but Russia still lags far behind the United States in this respect.
Adrien Henni is the editor of East West Digital News where this article first appeared.