Last week Leta Capital, the venture arm of Russian IT security solution provider Leta Group, and TMT Investments, a UK-headquartered venture fund backed by Russian businessmen, announced a $1 million investment in Californian startup rollApp.
RollApp provides a software-on-demand service designed to instantly deliver existing third-party software applications to any web-browser-equipped device with broadband/3G.
The service aims at allowing end-users to launch virtually any such application in the “cloud” and then use it inside a standard web-browser.
TMT initially invested $350,000 in rollApp in August 2011. This fund, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, has recently invested in self-service video network Virool, mobile advertising network Adinch, and Graphicly, an online service for publishers.
Lauched last year, Leta Capital has invested in air screen maker Displair, photo storage startup Baltostorage, and social alarm service Budist. RollApp is Leta’s first investment outside Russia.
“LETA Capital’s investments are not geographically limited to Russian companies,” the fund’s Senior Investment Manager Sergey Toporov explained in an exchange with East-West Digital News. “We are ready to make all over the world. The most significant factor for us is a product that solves a real-world, international problem with a new technological method, as well as confidence in the project founders and our interaction with them. As such, all other factors being equal, we give preference to projects with Russian-speaking founders.”
“In the case of RollApp, I can affirm that they have brought a relevant solution to the problem of cross-platform launch of applications, as 500,000 users confirmed the result in May. In addition, in a team lead by Vladimir Pavlov, there is a clear understanding of project creation and commercialization on an international scale,” Toporov added.
