28 March 2012 | Russian Venture Company (RVC), "RUSNANO" and MICEX-RTS Established Non-Commercial Partnership "IIM-board"
“RVC, "RUSNANO" and MICEX-RTS are establishing a non-commercial partnership "Innovation and Investment Market" (IIM)”, - says “Kommersant”. According to it, each party plans to invest in MII 10 million rubles. “RVC Board of Directors approved the financing of the project at the end of January”, - "Kommersant" added. Alexey Sitnikov, vice president for management and development of Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and member of the Board of Directors of RVC, confirmed this fact. “We certainly appreciate any initiative to improve financial infrastructure of innovation market”, - said the press service of "RUSNANO".
“The partnership aims at supporting innovative companies,” – says “Kommersant”. The main project of IIM is a web site "IPOBoard" (www.ipoboard.ru) which provides an opportunity for placing and trading in shares of nonpublic companies. The project involves startups (not older than four years) with great growth potential and market capitalization less than $ 20 million and which are interested in raising up to $ 3 million and going public. In particular, it can be applied to startups established within "Skolkovo" and received financing from RVC or "RUSNANO". The non-commercial partnership is going to contribute to their listing in RTS-MICEX. “For innovative companies going public - is a dream” - says CEO of RVC Igor Agamirzyan. “A number of companies financed by RVC, are traded on MICEX-RTS yet”, - he added.
RVC will provide startups with information and expertise, and also will favour collaboration between startups and venture partners of RVC Seed Fund. It is also declared that preliminary budget for the partnership for 2012-2013 will be 15 million rubles, including 4 million rubles for technology expertise, assistance in business plan elaboration and promotion of commercialization of the results. In terms of listing on MICEX, "RUSNANO" and MICEX created in 2009 a separate sector for innovative companies, where stocks of such companies like "Armada" and O2TV are traded. Trading volume in this sector in February reached 191,8 million rubles.
"IPOBoard - is an incubator of issuers for MICEX," - said CEO of the holding "Finam" Vladislav Kochetkov. “In fact, this is a "board" where can be traded shares of any company without listing,” continued Mr. Kochetkov. “In contrast to MICEX with hundreds of thousands of investors and buyers here will be dozens mostly institutional and venture capital investors.”
“Start of the project will be very slow, it is needed to attract a definite number of participants and investors. At the beginning of the project we will have only few deals per month," – comments “Kommersant”. “In Russia there are no such projects like "IIM-board", except information systems of business angels,” - adds Vladislav Kochetkov. “However, abroad such projects already exist”, - said investment analyst at Bright Capital Pavel Nikonov. “IAs a matter of fact, SecondMarket.com involes more than 25 thousand companies and 15 thousand investors. In 2011 at the SecondMarket.com made transactions over $ 558 million, which is 51% higher than a year before. In October 2011 Yuri Milner, a co-owner of DST, became an investor on SecondMarket, invested $ 13 million (SecondMarket capitalization is $ 160 million).
Vladislav Novui, Peter Rudenko. Find more on: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1884158
