DST Global, the venture capital and growth equity firm led by Yuri Milner, has raised $1.7 billion for its fifth fund, according to a filing with the SEC. The fund has been registered in the Cayman Islands.
The identity of the new fund’s backers has not been disclosed, but a source close to DST told Russian business daily Vedomosti that they include both funds and individual investors. Unlike the previous DST funds, DST Global V has no Russian backers, according to the source.
Since the launch of its first fund in 2005, DST has been the largest Internet-oriented investment fund with Russian backers. In September 2010, DST rebranded itself, giving its operational wing the name Mail.ru Group and calling its investment fund DST Global. Mail.ru Group, which included a host of Russian-language sites as well as a fraction of DST’s stakes in international sites, began trading on the London Stock Exchange in late 2010.
Meanwhile, DST Global I acquired stakes in a number of leading international Internet companies, from Facebook, to Zynga, to Groupon, to ICQ.
A new fund, DST Global II, was launched in 2011, having raised about $1 billion, followed by DST Global III in 2012 and DST Global IV in 2014.
The DST Global funds continuously invested in leading international Internet companies, including Airbnb, Spotify, Twitter, Zalando as well as in German incubator Rocket Internet and Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and 360buy.com (now JD.com). Last year, the fund led a $210 million funding deal with Indian e-commerce leader Flipkart.
