Russian-Austrian startup investor Igor Ryabenkiy is attracting partners to his investment fund, Altair Capital Management, aiming to raise $20 million before the end of this year
Two figures from the Russian venture scene, Igor Matsanyuk and Mikhail Vinchel, have already brought in a part of the funding via their own investment vehicles. Other LPs are expected to join before the end of the year.
Over the past few years, Ryabenkiy’s Altair has backed around 70 Russian and foreign startups at the pre-seed or seed stages, bringing them anything between $100,000 and $200,000 and thus becoming the most active seed-stage investor, by far, in Russia.
The new Altair is a different vehicle with a somehow different strategy, Ryabenkiy told East-West Digital News. It will target mainly international startups – following a current trend in the Russian venture community – with higher investment amounts, usually from $300,000 to $500,000.
The money that the new Altair has already managed to raise has been invested in 11 companies, reported Russian business publication RBC. These include online car sales service CarPrice, recruitment app Amazing Hiring, and European travel service RoutePerfect.
In addition, Altair has just teamed up with Almaz Capital, a globalized fund with Russian connections, to inject $600,000 in ArCycle, a Cyprus-based company that develops virtualized storage backup and replication solutions.
