CEO and co-owner Mail.ru Group Dmitry Grishin launches second venture Fund Grishin Robotics to invest in projects in the field of robotics, the “Internet of things” and space projects, the report said Fund. The volume of new Fund of $100 million, which is four times larger than the first Fund Grishin Robotics, Grishin created in 2012.
$25 million, which CEO Mail.ru invested in the first Fund, he has earned on sale of shares in the IPO Mail.ru on the London stock exchange in 2010. At the moment Grishin owns a 1.84% Mail.ru as at 20:30 GMT on April 11 this package was worth on the stock exchange $88,3 million
Unlike the first Fund, the second with Grishin will be a partner — a former Goldman Sachs investment banker and partner of the Foundation Yuri Milner’s DST Global Verdi Israelian. Until June 2013 he held the position of financial Director and Director of operations Mail.ru when he was elected to the Board of Directors, but left both positions at the end of February 2016. In addition Israelian, Grishin Robotics to invest several institutional and individual investors from the U.S. and Europe, their names the Fund will not disclose. Offices Grishin Robotics will be located in San Francisco and London.
The new Fund has already closed its first deal. He has participated in the financing of the company-developer of “smart” devices for home security and apartment Ring. How much was invested in the company Grishin Robotics, the Fund was not disclosed. It is known that the Fund participated in the round S. According to CrunchBase, the entire amount of the round was $61.2 m, the leading investor was a Fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (invested in Uber, Airbnb, Slack, Snapchat, etc.), also invested in a Ring the founder of Virgin Group Richard Branson.
As noted in the message Grishin Robotics, taking into account the capital increase the Fund will focus on deals series A and B investing in each company to $10 million (including initial and any subsequent investment). The Fund plans more often than before, to act as the leading investor. A small percentage of the Fund is reserved for “interesting” projects at early stages of development, that is, to “seed” investments, or, conversely, in the later stages.
“When I started to invest in robotics in 2012, many were skeptical industry, — said Grishin in an interview with Bloomberg, but since then companies such as Google, Amazon, and major private foundations also began to invest in this area, proving that it has the potential to grow into the industry’s $1 trillion”.
For the past four years, Grishin Robotics has invested in 12 companies. Among his investments is a developer of robots for teleconferencing Double Robotics, the Internet-store of software for robots RobotAppStore, a developer of nano-satellites to collect data and images of objects in space, NanoSatisfi, the developer of the robot to monitor the diet of Pets PetNet. According to the website Crunchbase, the largest transaction involving a Fund Grishin Robotics is investing in a “designer” robots littleBits Electronics. The size of the Grishin Robotics investment in littleBits were not disclosed, the whole round was $46.7 million
