Rusnano, Russia’s nanotech giant, aims to create two new investment funds in the first half of this year. The state-owned corporation is holding talks with potential co-investors from China and the Middle-East, said its executive director Boris Podolsky in an interview with news agency Prime in late December.
The cooperation may involve Japanese institutional investors as well, including potentially Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), as considered by a Russian-Japanese intergovernmental commission.
“We seek to attract an institutional investor, and JBIC is an important player in this segment. Currently we are negotiating with a wide range of technological companies, for example, Mitsui,” said Podolsky.
“It’s better to start working with a small fund, I believe, so $100 million is an appropriate amount,” he added.
So far, Rusnano has attracted 16.45 billion rubles (roughly $271 million at the current exchange rate) for its new joint investment funds. By 2020, the funds expect to attract 150 billion rubles ($2.4 billion) in total, reports Prime.
“Clearly, much has changed since when we made the commitment to attract 150 billion rubles. The sanctions don’t help us very much reach this target [which was set before they were taken by western countries in 2014], but we still intend to do so,” stated Podolsky in the interview.
Thus in 2014 the EBRD pulled out of a planned joint fund with Rusnano.
But in early 2016, Rusnano launched a $500 million nanotech fund jointly with China’s Zhongrong International Trust, as reported by East-West Digital News.
