Almaz Capital


Almaz Capital is an international venture fund that invests in software startups and SaaS. Almaz Capital is headquartered in Portola Valley, California, has an office in Berlin and representative offices in CEE countries. Almaz Capital's managing partner is Alexander Galitsky.

History

In 2004, Cisco approached Alexander Galitsky, former scientist and technological entrepreneur who was appointed as president of Russian Tech Tour and offered him financing to establish a venture fund to invest into Russian startup companies. Galitsky selected the bridge fund model and has focused on investing in and connecting Eastern European startups creating promising technologies for global markets with western companies that can benefit from engineering resources in Eastern Europe.
Galitsky founded Almaz Capital in 2008 together with three partners: Charles Emmitt Ryan, founder of, senior advisor at Deutsche Bank and former CEO of Deutsche Bank Russia; Peter Loukianoff, a Russian American working for Alloy Ventures and Pavel Bogdanov, a partner at Russian Technologies venture fund. Geoffrey Baehr, who used to curate joint projects with Galitsky in the 1990s when he was CNO at Sun Microsystems later joined Almaz Capital as advisor. In 2011, Loukianoff resigned from Almaz Capital and Baehr became fund's fourth general partner.

Funds

Among its investors, Almaz Capital I attracted $30 million from Cisco and $20 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Almaz Capital II raised around $200 million from its limited partners. Cisco remained Almaz Capital's major investor in fund II with other major investment coming from UFG, EBRD and the International Finance Corporation. In an interview for the Vedomosti newspaper, Galitsky noted that Almaz Capital II attracted money from several family offices.

Investments

Almaz Capital I was focused on startups from CIS and the United States and the second fund extended its geography to Eastern European countries. From 2008 to 2019 Almaz Capital invested over 200 million dollars in over 30 companies. The fund's key portfolio companies include:
As of August 2019 the fund had 13 exit transactions: