The Russian venture fever hit the Tomsk region in Siberia last week with the announced launch of a regional seed-stage fund. The new fund is expected to focus on the support of technology developments across the region’s innovation production clusters and in local academia.
The fund will operate as an Open Investment Society (in Russian: “Otkrytoe Investitsionnoe Tovarishchestvo”), which is a new type of legal entity in Russia that was introduced recently to ensure the equality of all partners in a business, including newcomers.
The Tomsk Venture Investment Center (TVIC) will act as the managing partner in the new society. TVIC is the seven-year-old operating arm of what is known in Russian officialese as the “Regional Venture Fund for Investment into Small Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Sphere of Tomsk Oblast,” a 120 million ruble ($3.9 million) private-public partnership between the government of the Tomsk region and corporate partners.
Another key founder is the Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radio Electronics (TUSUR), one of Siberia’s largest higher educational establishments and a leader in commercializing lab research in Tomsk.
Source: TUSUR
