RVC CEO – about venture business
RVC: three development prioritiesMarina Muravyeva, STRF.ru
The development strategy of the Russian Venture Company (RVC) was presented by its CEO Igor Agamirzyan at the conference "Venture Capital – a catalyst for the development of an innovative economy in times of crisis", which was held as part of the business program of the IX Salon of Innovations and Investments.
RVC was organized 3 years ago, and during this time of presence in the market and information space, the most famous news about RVC was accompanied by not too beautiful stories and, moreover, scandals, RVC CEO Igor Agamirzyan noted at the conference. It is enough to recall Schwartzman's interview or the story with the Prosecutor General's Office, the change of the company's management. "In general, RVC was positioned in our rather tight market not in the best way," Agamirzyan believes. – And when I agreed to take the position of head, I understood the risks I was taking. But, on the other hand, I decided that in some sense it is easier to convert negative PR into positive PR than to create it from scratch."
A month after Agamirzyan joined RVC, he outlined the main provisions of the company's development strategy. At the end of September, this document will be submitted for consideration by the Board of directors – but with all the justifications and a fairly serious scientific and methodological study. According to Igor Agamirzyan, he "decided to build RVC the way it should be in order to have a significant impact on the development of the innovative segment of the Russian economy." And he strongly hopes that he will succeed.
All RVC activities will be based on three main areas related to:
capital;
infrastructure;
expertise.
"I am not trying to absolutize the venture," said Igor Agamirzyan. – Venture business is a mechanism for providing financing and development of innovative companies, no more and no less. It's a tool. So, the peculiarities of the high-tech market, and, in particular, the use of venture business for financing, is that money is not really needed for it. Paradoxical as it sounds. This is a market where supply always exceeds demand in all periods of economic development. But what is sorely lacking is high-quality expertise. We need not just money, but money accompanied by expertise. This is a fundamental point."
The problem, according to Agamirzyan, is that RVC was originally created as a purely financial organization, a big money bag, a fund of funds, whose task was to distribute money to those who want to try to take a risk. Two years of her work has demonstrated that this is absolutely the wrong approach. The problem was precisely the ignorance, inability to conduct expertise by those venture funds and management companies, as well as specific venture investment specialists who began to do this. We have no experience in building technological and innovative businesses in our country, as well as understanding which projects are attractive for venture capital and which are not. The projects that are traditionally associated with successful innovative technological projects that have emerged in Russia over the past 20 years are actually quite a few: two hands are enough to list them, the CEO of RVC believes.
"There is a lot of money, but expertise is sorely lacking," Agamirzyan sums up. – As a result, even 7 funds created with the participation of RVC, which are really venture funds, have about 20 billion rubles in total implementation over 2 years. Approximately 49% – public funds, 51% – private. These funds have already created such a transfer of money in this market that they have to compete with each other and frantically look for promising projects that could be invested."
Another significant problem is the lack of innovative development infrastructure elements. In order for venture companies to develop normally, they need service organizations: consulting companies, legal, outsourcing and accounting.
A high-tech startup created by scientists, when there is some wonderful technological idea, but there is no understanding and ability to conduct business, is practically doomed, Agamirzyan believes. The first encounter with the tax inspectorate can lead to the failure of the entire wonderful technological project. In order to avoid this, we need standard methods, professional recommendations that help to set up accounting, properly issue legal documents, intellectual property rights, etc. Many extremely interesting projects have a very complicated situation with intellectual property rights, so investors are afraid to contact them.
"It is necessary to develop international cooperation and attract Western money to Russia," said Igor Agamirzyan. – This problem is very important. But, in addition, it is necessary to help Russian companies to enter global markets. Technological innovation development is global in nature, so without access to Western markets, Russian companies have no prospects in development and in attracting investment. Today, all fairly successful companies are leaving the Russian legal field. In my opinion, here it is necessary to rebuild the approach of supporting Russian innovative companies that have something to offer on the global market in order to then turn into large global companies."
Finally, turning to the third block, which Agamirzyan called the first – capital, the head of RVC noted that it is necessary to expand investment programs across the entire spectrum of the technological chain of venture investments. The funds created by RVC are focused on a specific narrow segment, these are early and mid-stage funds, but in fact, in the pyramid of innovative projects that need to be developed through external investments, this is not the most significant part. By the way, this is also one of the reasons for the lack of high-quality projects, Agamirzyan is sure. The fact is that today there are practically no seed funds in Russia, when there is a technological idea and often there is neither a company nor a clear business model.
"We plan to launch a seed investment fund in the next two months," Igor Agamirzyan said. – This is the most priority direction for us. This fund will be 100% state-owned, and the money for the seed stage project will be mixed not at the fund level, but at the level of a specific project. In addition, it is pre-planned for scaling. There are many sources. The concept of seed financing funds, which we approved at the meeting of directors of the Russian Venture Company in June, is based on the model of venture partners. The main function is to search for projects and attract private investment."
And although the creation of seed financing funds is extremely important for Russia now, Igor Agamirzyan is confident that in a year or two priorities may change and the problem of creating late-stage funds will be in the spotlight. There are practically no Russian strategic investors, with the exception of a very small segment in the telecommunications field. "For obvious reasons, our innovative companies that have achieved some kind of result are forced to turn to a multinational strategic investor who are ready to take these companies as "wives". Selling to a multinational company is the dream of almost any Russian startup. However, the number of transnationals is limited and competition among "brides" is very high. There are a couple of successful precedents, but only a couple for the entire innovation market of Russia. Therefore, it is already necessary to think about late-stage funds and the development of an exit strategy, Igor Agamirzyan stressed.
Concluding his speech, the head of RVC noted that there are two innovative systems in Russia – public and private, and they hardly look at each other, they are almost not friends with each other. "And one of the RVC's missions is to become a link between the public and private innovation system," Agamirzyan said. – So that with our methods of building a network community, we can have a positive impact on building an innovative economy in Russia."
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru01.09.2009