Interros of Vladimir Potanin sold Voskhod management company to top management

Interros of Vladimir Potanin sold the management company of the Voskhod venture fund with a volume of 10 billion rubles. top management. Both organizations are under sanctions. Experts believe that the new owners of the fund will have more freedom in making decisions, but allow the repurchase of the asset “in the event of a change in the political situation.” Interros is still the only investor in Voskhod, but the new owners expect to attract other players as well.

Kommersant discovered in the SPARK-Interfax database that Vladimir Potanin’s investment company Interros had sold the top management of Voskhod Management Company (which controls the Voskhod investment fund). According to SPARK-Interfax, since spring, 80% of the company has been owned by CEO Ruslan Sarkisov, 10% each by Konstantin Gibalo and Artur Martirosov.

Voskhod Management Company confirmed the information, adding that it still manages the fund of the same name with a volume of 10 billion rubles, where Interros is the only contributor. However, the change in the ownership structure of the UK “is due to the fact that work is underway to attract new investors,” Voskhod explained. An Interros representative told Kommersant that the management has all the necessary competencies, and “cooperation between companies is carried out within the framework of an agreement.” The parties did not disclose the amount of the transaction.

Voskhod Venture Fund was established by Interros in 2021. It positioned itself as the first major private fund in the Far East (the company’s first office was opened in Vladivostok). Ruslan Sarkisov headed the fund in the same year. Since its foundation, Interros has invested 2 billion rubles through the Voskhod fund. into technology startups in Russia in the field of robotics, biotechnology, etc. Dsight analysts call Voskhod “one of the most active in the country.”

In 2022, the assets of Vladimir Potanin, including Interros, fell under sanctions (see Kommersant dated December 15, 2022), and in January 2023 the businessman re-registered investment assets from Cyprus to the Far East (see Kommersant dated 16 January). Meanwhile, on May 19 Voskhod and Roman Sarkisov directly fell under US sanctions.

Against the backdrop of sanctions pressure and the deteriorating economic situation in Russia, the venture investment market has declined sharply: for the whole of 2022, only 128 transactions were concluded, while a year earlier – 291, and investments fell by 57%, to $ 1.1 billion. But the industry noted, that if last year most of the planned transactions were put on hold, positive dynamics are expected this year (see Kommersant dated January 12). At the conference “Digital Industry of Industrial Russia-2023” (CIPR) on June 2, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin instructed the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Digital Development and the Ministry of Economy to prepare amendments to the legislation to stimulate the attraction of venture capital investments in Russian IT companies (see “Kommersant” dated June 2).

Kommersant’s interlocutor in the investment market believes that the deal will not bring significant changes to the work of Voskhod and “initially, it was still conceived as insurance against sanctions.” According to a Kommersant source, the sale took place according to the MBO (management buyout) mechanism, which allows for the repurchase of an asset in the event of a change in the economic and geopolitical situation.

Given the sanctions against Voskhod, the deal can no longer be called an attempt to hide the fund from a sanctions strike, and, most likely, it really came under the full control of the management, despite the source of funding, objected to the expert of the Moscow Digital School educational platform (part of Ultimate Education) Vlad Chukanov. He admits that now the fund will have more freedom in making decisions and Voskhod will be able to conclude transactions that were not carried out under the actual management of Interros.

Tatyana Isakova