VTB Capital yesterday announced it led a $5.5 million round of financing for aiHit, a London based provider of company data to the business information, market research and lead generation industries. Amadeus Capital Partners, the UK’s leading venture capital group, and several other existing investors, also took part in the deal.
aiHit has created a fully automated data management system with many applications to extract, categorize, structure, analyze, and manage unstructured data from the web. At present, the company is focused on the business information industry with Capital IQ, Dun&Bradstreet, Bisnode, Equifax, Datamonitor and other business information providers among its key clients.
“aiHit has invented a new way to extract, manage and analyze raw data,” believes Aidar Kaliev, Head of VTB Capital’s venture business.
The $5.5 million investment will finance marketing, business development and R&D, according to a press release from VTB Capital. As a part of its development plan, aiHit is planning a R&D center in St. Petersburg, Russia.
VTB Capital is the investment arm of VTB Group, a leading Russian state controlled financial group with offices in Moscow, London, Singapore and Dubai. The fund focuses on IT, Internet projects, industrial innovations, nanotechnology, and energy-efficient technology, mainly at startup stages.
VTB Capital owns stakes in Russian as well as foreign companies, including: Russian Navigation Technologies (RNT), the largest manufacturer and integrator of telematics systems in Russia; Questora, a company with offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Saratov that operates worldwide in the field of highly scalable software platforms; Returnil, an international provider of security solutions; and Beau Laboratories, a developer of innovative 3D software.
Earlier this year, VTB Capital invested in COMDI, a leading player on the Russian video conference market.
