Sberbank prepares to launch new international fund of up to $250 million

Sberbank, Russia’s national savings bank, is in the process of creating a second venture fund, Russian news agency TASS reported last week. The size of the new fund, which will involve other investors, could reach up to $250 million, TechCrunch wrote yesterday.

Sberbank invested $100 million in its first corporate venture fund, SBT Venture Capital (managed by MoneyTime Ventures).

Launched in 2012, this fund has thus far invested in 10 companies around the world — including Uber through a round of funding which was completed in the spring of this year.

SBT also invested in:

• Advanced Merchant Payments (AMP), a Southeast Asian credit company in which it invested in 2014;
• eToro, a social network for investors, through a round of funding which took place in 2014;
• Gridgrain Systems, a US-based company developing an enterprise software platform for real-time data access, which received $15 million in early 2016 in a round led by Sberbank with participation from SBT and other funds;
• IdentityMind Global, a Palo Alto, California-based provider of risk management solutions for e-commerce in which SBT invested in 2015;
• Mobeewave, a Canadian startup which raised $6.5 million in 2015 to develop fast and secure NFC mobile payment acceptance services;
• Moven, a US-based money-management service Moven which raised $8 million in 2014;
• Walkbase, a Finnish publisher of retail analytics solutions which secured a $3 million round in 2013.

SBT is also supporting a fintech startup accelerator in Russia in partnership with government-backed fund IIDF (FRII).