Last week Maxfield Capital, a Moscow-based $100 million venture fund, announced it had acquired a “minority stake” in Parallels in exchange for a capital injection of “more than $5 million.”
A global provider of cloud enabling and desktop virtualization solutions founded by a Russian team in 1999, Parallels has “attractive IPO or M&A [perspectives],” the fund believes.
The Maxfield Capital fund was created in May 2013 by former Skolkovo top executive Alexander Turkot to invest in IT and early-stage Internet projects. It is backed by Russian oligarch and Skolkovo president Viktor Vekselberg, among other LPs.
Earlier this month Parallels secured an investment of an undisclosed amount from global technology distributor Ingram Micro. Another shareholder of Parallels is Cisco, which invested in the company in early 2013 to support joint go-to-market activities.
Parallels itself is an investor in California based Xform Computing, a pioneer in the field of cloud-streaming mobile apps and services. The terms of the deal, which was announced in mid-April, have not been disclosed.
“With global smartphone and tablet shipments topping one billion in a single year, there’s an increasing need for applications that improve efficiency and productivity on these devices,” stated Jack Zubarev, president of cross platform solutions at Parallels. “Parallels is pleased to work with Xform to take advantage of the market opportunity.”
Xform and Parallels are collaborating across their technical, marketing and product teams to accelerate Xform’s AlwaysOnPC platform to address new applications and expand into more global markets and channels.
