In November 2011, AmBAR group on LinkedIn counted over 2000 members. People who associate themselves with AmBAR are entrepreneurs, engineers, marketers, lawyers, finance specialists, venture capitalists, angel investors, as well as representatives of many other fields. AmBAR is the organizer of the Silicon Valley Open Doors technology investment conference which takes place annually in Silicon Valley. During the seven years of its existence, SVOD provided boost in professional and business contacts to hundreds of startup ventures founded by Russian-speaking entrepreneurs and attracted from the Silicon Valley high tech community.
Programs
AmBAR runs a range of events and programs that facilitate interaction and communication among and between the US and Russian business and professional communities. These activities are often organized in partnership with well-known organizations. In October 2010, AmBAR partnered with the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies of Stanford University to hold a panel discussion “What’s the Secret of Silicon Valley and How Can It Be Replicated in Russia”, whose guest speaker was Viktor Vekselberg, the President of the Skolkovo Foundation. With the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies, AmBAR organized the Silicon Valley's First Venture Capital Trip to Russia. "A Russian state-backed fund for investment in nanotechnology, Rusnano, organized the trip with AmBar, a trade group for Russian-speaking professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area.<...> Rusnano’s director, Anatoly Chubais, one of the architects of Russia’s immediate post-Soviet privatization, who has now joined the effort to diversify, said in a statement that the goal of the visit was to “bring together the country’s most promising innovative projects with the world’s smartest money.” All events took place in Moscow on May 25–27, 2010. Most of participating VC firms are ranked within TOP 50 of all venture firms, with total amount of capital under management exceeding $50 billion. On May 25, the delegates met with the Russian PresidentDmitry Medvedev. AmBAR organized a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the Russian compatriots working in the San Francisco Bay Area. The meeting took place during Medvedev's June 2010 visit to Silicon Valley, in a cafe in Palo Alto. The exchange of opinions between AmBAR members and Medvedev went on for about two hours. The transcript of the meeting is available from the President's press service in both Russian and English. The discussion focused on the question "How could Russia reproduce the start-up and venture-capital culture of Silicon Valley?".
