Runa Capital, a Palo Alto-headquartered VC firm with Russian roots, has closed its $157 million third fund – above the initially considered $135 million target.
“The fundraising started last year and went super fast, we were oversubscribed already months ago,” the firm’s managing partner Dmitry Chikhachev told East-West Digital news.
Launched in 2011, Runa Capital’s first fund targeted essentially Russian startups; but the firm quickly switched to a global strategy focused on software startups.
Runa launched its second fund in 2014, ultimately raising $135 million. So far, Runa funds has invested in over 60 companies from 14 different countries. Among its exits were the French mobile app analytics Capptain (acquired by Microsoft), mobile banking startup Final (acquired by Goldman Sachs), web server NGINX (acquired by F5 Networks last year for $670 million) and Acumatica (acquired one year ago by PE fund EQT Partners).
“We invested in deep tech long before it became the mainstream for venture capital, betting on Nginx in 2011, Wallarm and ID Quantique in 2013, and MariaDB in 2014,” Chikhachev said, as reported by TechCrunch.
Runs now intends to focus even more on machine learning and quantum computing.
In early 2020, the firm opened its newest office in Berlin, aiming to better serve its growing German portfolio. Runa also regularly invests in French startups, an almost unique case among VC funds with Russian roots.
