Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin is among the first ones to take advantage of the lifting of most international sanctions on Iran. Winter Capital Partners (WCP), a private equity and venture capital fund controlled by Potanin’s Interros, has recently acquired a stake in Pomegranate. This Swedish company actively invests in Iranian digital assets via Sarava, a leading Iranian VC firm.
According to Russian business daily Kommersant, WCP has acquired just a small stake in Pomegranate. The details of the transaction, which took place in March, have remained undisclosed.
Thus Potanin indirectly holds shares in DigiKala, Iran’s largest e-commerce company, as well as leading classifieds sites Divar and Sheypoor. Sarava is also a shareholder of Café Bazaar, Iran’s main Android marketplace, Pomegranate told East-West Digital News.
In addition, Pomegranate owns directly stakes in Carvanro, Iran’s first online ride-sharing service, and in Griffon Capital, a newly formed Iran-focused investment and advisory boutique.
Venture internationalism
Pomegranate presents itself as “the only publicly accessible investment holding with direct access to the Iranian market, giving a stake in high quality consumer tech growth, which is unprecedented globally.”
The firm was founded in 2014 by Vostock New Ventures CEO Per Brilioth with participation from Jonas Nordlander and Filip Engelbert, the co-founders of the leading Russian online classifieds platform, Avito.
Following the completion of a €60 million pre-IPO last week, Pomegranate’s combined old and new shareholders are predominantly from Northern and Western Europe, 50% from Sweden, 18% from the UK, 12% from Switzerland and Austria, and 3% from other geographies. Seventeen percent come from Russia and other CEE countries.
Among Pomegranate’s early backers are Russian businessmen Andrey Muravyev and Boris Sinegubko, which invested a few million dollars in the company last year.
Digitizing the Islamic revolution archive
Several other Russian investors are eyeing Iran’s tech markets, according to Kommersant. Among them are telecom magnate Yevgeny Roitman, who has plans to introduce the Glonass technology in Iran, and ABBYY, a major software company, which has suggested to digitize Iran’s National Library and Islamic revolution archive.
Mail.ru Group, a leading, LSE-listed Russian Internet group, is “engaged in a marketing investigation and research” of the Iranian market, as East-West Digital News reported last month. Young Iranians have shown great interest in ICQ, an international messenger service that belongs to the group.
Meanwhile Yandex, another leading Russian Internet company, has declined government invites to enter the Iranian market.
