Sistema_VC, the venture capital arm of Russian multi-industry investment conglomerate AFK Sistema, will invest $10 million in UK startup SenSat, Vedomosti daily reported last week. Founded in 2015, this geospatial technology startup “turns complex visual and spatial data into a real-time simulated reality that helps computers solve real world problems.”
This AI-powered technology “allows companies operating in physical domains, such as infrastructure construction, to make more informed decisions based on multiple variables at large scale and complexity.”
The investment round was headed by Chinese private investment company Tencent, but other investors and shares of equity distributed have not been disclosed. Previously SenSat raised $4.4 million.
Sistema_VC will also help SenSat enter Russian market through large infrastructure projects. In 2018 Sistema_VC invested $2.5 million in another IT construction start-up TraceAir, which processes drone-captured information.
Other UK start-ups supported by Sistema_VC include KisanHub (optimisation for agricultural logistic chains) and DataSine (marketing content personalisation), as reported by East-West Digital News.
The value of foreign venture capital deals with Russian participation in H1 2019 doubled to $860 million as compared with $418 million in H1 2018, as reported by bne IntelliNews. Ninety-nine percent of the investment went to foreign IT projects and start-ups, with the average deal with Russian participation also doubling from $11 million to $24 million. The investment abroad beat the domestic investment of $248 million in the reporting period 3.5-fold.
Sistema_VC has capital of 10 billion rubles (around $150 million at the current exchange rate). In February 2017 Russia’s largest bank Sberbank and Maginvest of Viktor Rashnikov invested 2 billion rubles in the fund in exchange for a 20% stake. Other investment of Sistema_VC include VisionLabs face recognition solutions, AI-based virtual cybersports coach gosu.ai, and Russian freelance services platform YouDo.com.
