The lad of a apical Kremlin authoritative continues to clasp investments successful the West contempt being sanctioned by the U.S., EU and Britain implicit Russia’s penetration of Ukraine, The Moscow Times has learned.
VK CEO Vladimir Kiriyenko — whose begetter is President Vladimir Putin’s home argumentation main Sergei Kiriyenko — maintains links with Titanium VC, a task superior money helium co-founded that helium has antecedently utilized to put successful tech startups.
According to a tribunal papers obtained by The Moscow Times, helium is present seeking to transportation his investments from an offshore institution registered successful the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to different offshore steadfast successful Barbados.
Kiriyenko filed a suit successful July 2024 with the BVI Supreme Court to request that shares of Titanium VC beryllium transferred from the BVI-registered offshore institution Yalecrest to the Barbados-based Belvaux Management Limited.
The tribunal papers signed by Kiriyenko states the worth of his assertion astatine implicit $500,000.
The Pandora Papers probe successful 2021 named Kiriyenko arsenic Yalecrest’s owner. Documents from the Paradise Papers probe nexus Belvaux to a villa astatine the Royal Westmoreland play edifice successful Barbados.
Kiriyenko and concern partner Alexander Ayvazov founded Titanium VC successful 2013 with astir $50 million. The money focused connected Israeli startups, galore of which were aboriginal acquired by large U.S. firms. Notable deals included:
- Cloudyn, a unreality infrastructure monitoring service, was acquired by Microsoft successful 2017 for up to $70 million.
- Nanorep Technologies, specializing successful virtual lawsuit work solutions, was sold to LogMeIn successful 2017 for $45 million.
- 365scores, a sports media company, was purchased by British gambling elephantine Entain successful 2024 for $150 million.
- Drippler, a quality app, was bought by U.S.-based Asurion for $3 million.
- Mentad, a selling platform, was acquired by American steadfast Code3.
Titanium VC besides invested successful Russian companies, including a $7 cardinal involvement successful the online gaming steadfast Fabrika Online and the outgo strategy CloudPayments, which was aboriginal sold to Tinkoff Bank. Other investments included the societal app Wakie, the productivity instrumentality Any.do and respective selling exertion firms specified arsenic BrightInfo and FeedVisor.
Forbes Russia antecedently reported that Kiriyenko funded Titanium VC utilizing proceeds from the merchantability of a involvement successful Sarovbusinessbank.
While the fund’s returns person not been disclosed, Kiriyenko said successful 2016 that helium had divested from Titanium VC aft taking an enforcement relation astatine Rostelecom.
Since 2021, Kiriyenko has led tech conglomerate VK, which owns VKontakte, 1 of Russia’s largest societal media sites.
VK precocious re-registered its operations from the BVI to Russia’s Kaliningrad region.
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