The new era of Venture Capitalism (VC) is upon us. Like many other fields going through the various stages of changes and innovation the field of VC is not different. Recently there has been a buzz about Russian VC firms and investors making large investments in some of the major software firms of the silicon valley. One such name is Yuri Milner the russian venture capitalist who is rewriting the rules of venture capitalism in the all new font and that to in his very own style.
Born and brought up in Russia Yuri is sharp, agile and a workaholic. During 1989 Yuri was working towards getting a Phd in particle physics from the university of Moscow. During the same time period Russia was going through the challenging times and the Soviet Union was falling apart. Yuri decided to leave his Phd program in between and got inclined towards getting a degree in business. He was lucky enough to utilize the scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. He became the first non immigrated person from the Soviet Union to attend the elite business program. Yuri worked hard towards getting an MBA and ended up doing a job in Washington DC for World Bank’s financial sector. Later he moved back to Moscow and worked for investment brokerage firm Alliance Menatep. The 1999 report of Goldman Sach’s Internet analyst Mary Meeker changed the vision of Yuri from the banking sector to the internet and Yuri decided to bankroll the internet revolution.
Yuri practised VC not as a profession but as an asset class and this is what makes him different from other VC of these times. During 2005, Yuri created Digital Sky Technologies (DST) as an investment holding company and their first target was the russian web. Slowly and gradually Yuri allowed foreign investements to be the part of Digital Sky. During the financial crisis of 2008 Yuri decided to invest in the biggest social networking portal Facebook but was short of funds. Backed by Russia’s 5th richest man Alisher Usamov Digital Sky was successfully able to bought 2% stake in Facebook. With that deal in the West, Yuri was all set to invest in some of the promsing startups of the silicon valley. So far Yuri has invested around $180 million in Zynga (social network mobile game developer firm) and the much talked about Chicago based Groupon (deal of the day website). Yuri is also a big fan of Paul Graham the master mind behind Y-Combinator (seed stage startup funding firm) and have invested around $150,000 in each of the starups registered with Y-Combinator. Amazing times for anyone who have a great idea for a startup.
As per the reports today, Yuri bought a $70 million estate in California and possibly having a plan to shift over to the US. It seems Yuri is getting proliferated and riding high with his ambitious web investments. Yuri’s 2% ($200 million) stake in Facebook has now swollen upto 10% and worth around $5 billion (one of the best profitable bets made in recent times) and if things go well, Yuri’s name will be among the elite VC coterie of the silicon valley.
All these years West is having a significant impact on the countries of the Eastern part of the World and I guess Yuri and other influential people from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India & China) region are now leading the squad to answer back.
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