DST Global, which is controlled by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, has launched its fourth investment fund — DST Global IV. The news was reported last week by Russian business daily Vedomosti based on documents posted on the website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The fund was registered in the Cayman Islands. Its volume has not been disclosed.
Since the launch of its first fund in 2005, DST has been the largest Internet-oriented investment fund with Russian backers. In September 2010, DST rebranded itself, giving its operational wing the name Mail.ru Group and calling its investment fund DST Global. Mail.ru Group, which included a host of Russian-language sites as well as a fraction of DST's stakes in international sites, began trading on the London Stock Exchange in late 2010.
Meanwhile, DST Global I acquired stakes in a number of leading international Internet companies, from Facebook, to Zynga, to Groupon, to ICQ.
A new fund, DST Global II, was launched in 2011, having raised about $1 billion, followed by DST Global III in 2012.
The DST Global funds continued investing in leading international Internet companies, including Airbnb, Spotify, Twitter, Zalando as well as in German incubator Rocket Internet and Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and 360buy.com. Recently, the fund led a $210 million funding deal with Indian e-commerce leader Flipkart.
Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov was the largest shareholder in the first of its funds. Forbes estimates that about 75% of its funds come from him, and Russian investors hold about 80% of it altogether. The share of Russian investors (Usmanov, Milner and their partners) in DST Global II is markedly smaller, totaling about 20%, Vedomosti noted. The remainder belongs to Western and Asian investment companies. There is only one Russian investor – Milner – in DST Global III. The shareholders in DST Global IV have not been disclosed.
The story originally appeared in East-West Digital News.
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Yuri started investing in Internet companies in 1999. In 2005, he founded Digital Sky Technologies, Limited (now Mail.ru Group) to focus on Internet investments in the Russian speaking world. Under his leadership, Mail.ru Group perform... read more »
