Last month ProVenture, a Telegam channel dedicated to venture and startup activity, surveyed venture investors from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Fifty two investors, 29 private VC fund managers, 5 private PE fund managers and 8 business angels took part in this online poll.
ProVenture founder and Da Vinci Capital investment director Denis Efremov shared the main results of the survey with East-West Digital News.
- Almost all respondents did feel an impact of the pandemic on their business.
- Around one third of respondents said their investment activity was not significantly impacted; another third said they reduced or stopped investments while just 8% began investing more actively.
- More than half of the surveyed investors are ready to close the deals fully remotely.
- A fairly high number of respondents (49%) said they were planning or ready to invest even in startups that are suffering from the crisis, while 2% already did so.
- Only 18% of Russian-speaking venture investors either walked away from an investment commitment or said they were ready to do so. Just 4% renegotiated the terms, while 74% confirmed their planned deals in the same terms.
- One third of respondents are willing to support their portfolio companies during the crisis with money: just weeks after the pandemic started, 16% had already provided financial support, 18% said they were ready to do so. More than half 54% provided them with advice or were ready to do so.
- The vast majority of investors (80%) believe that startups are reacting adequately to the Covid crisis, or have the capacity to do so.
- When asked about their own strategy, 72% of investors said that they will somehow adjust it. Another 2% intended to change it significantly.
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