USM, an investment holding controlled by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, invested “several dozen million dollars” in Uber in the summer of last year. The investment was revealed yesterday by Russian business dailies RBC and Vedomosti, which cited unnamed sources in the holding.
USM and Uber, however, declined to comment on these reports.
Thus Usmanov has been active on the international tech investment scene for many years. Together with Yuri Milner, he backed the first DST funds, which hold stakes in a number of leading international Internet companies, including Alibaba, Facebook, JD.COM, Groupon and Zynga.
In 2013 Usmanov spent about $100 million buying Apple shares just after the company lost $100 billion of its market value. “It was a good time to buy the shares,” he stated in an exchange with Bloomberg. The billionaire subsequently disposed of his shares in early 2014.
USM is a major shareholder in Mail.Ru Group, a leading, LSE-listed Russian internet company. In October 2015, USM announced an investment of “$100 million or more” in e-sports platform Virtus.pro.
Usmanov’s wealth has been recently estimated at $12.1 billion by Forbes and at $9.8 billion by Bloomberg. Although he made his first billions through mining and lumber operations, telecommunications, Internet and media assets now account for a significant part of Usmanov’s fortune.
Another Russian investor in Uber is Dagestani oligarch Ziyavudin Magomedov. Launched last year, his new fund Caspian VC Partners (CVC) presents the Uber stake as its “first trophy asset.”
CVC also has stakes in Uber China, elite travel site Peek, and Hyperloop, which is developing a high-speed transportation system inspired by Elon Musk.
