Experts assessed the impact of sanctions on VEB’s venture activity

Veb Ventures was established in 2017 to make venture investments in innovative and technological projects, to help Russian startups enter international markets. Until 2024 Web Ventures planned to invest more than 36.3 billion rubles.

Among the assets that Veb Ventures has already invested in are Tsifra Group, Urent scooter rental service, AlphaOpen city services developer, Doctor Nearby telemedicine service, developer of new O3 materials, Razvitie.ru financial products for business, developer of technological solutions in the field of sports “League of Sports”, etc.

The head of Tsifra Group of Companies, Igor Bogachev, in an interview with RBC, noted that he does not see risks for his company, since the share of Veb Ventures in the capital of Tsifra is not majority (16.9%, according to SPARK). “They are just a financial investor, so I don’t expect negative consequences in the international market. And it would be even more strange to expect negative consequences on the territory of Russia,” Bogachev said.

Representatives of Doctor Nearby, Urent declined to comment. MTS did the same, which at the end of February, together with Veb Ventures and the VPE fund, invested 2.09 billion rubles. in Urent. RBC sent a request to AlphaOpen, the Sports League, Razvitie.ru and the O3 group.

• According to Yury Fedyukin, Managing Partner of Enterprise Legal Solutions, the sanctions can cause the greatest damage to those VEB structures that work with exports, imports, investments in foreign projects and projects with the participation of foreign companies. “VEB’s venture capital business may become one of the main victims of sanctions, since sanctions risks arise for companies that attract financing from its funds, which in the future may prevent, for example, the purchase of high-tech imported equipment and technologies, not to mention the fact that they may to be closed foreign sales markets and borrowed capital,” said Yuri Fedyukin.

• Mergen Doraev, partner at EMPP law firm, added that for foreign partners and investors, such restrictions can be perceived as a black mark, since even the adoption of a corporate decision to pay dividends in favor of a sanctioned person can theoretically be qualified as a violation of the sanctions regime. “In practice, this entails not only the likelihood of an outflow of funds from foreign investors from such projects, but also a temporary blocking of the corporate decision-making mechanism by the governing bodies. It all depends on the rights that Veb Ventures has in a particular project, the composition of shareholders and their susceptibility of partners to sanctions risks,” says Doraev.
• Lawyer, head of Saunin Law Practice Andrei Saunin called the sanctions “bad news” for all companies in which Veb Ventures invests, especially for those that focus on international markets. Now it will be difficult for them to interact with counterparties from the US, EU, Australia, Canada, Japan and a number of other countries.

At the same time, Yuri Fedyukin recalled that in the interests of investors and counterparties, the United States can provide time – from a month to several years – to complete transactions and previously arisen contractual relations. Moreover, in some cases, sanctions may be imposed on the company, but their action may be postponed indefinitely, as was the case with the GAZ group.

• According to Artem Inyutin, Managing Partner of the TMT Investments venture fund, Veb Ventures is becoming “toxic” for its projects: other investors will simply not be able to invest in a project that already has this fund, and the project will have great difficulties if it wants to enter other markets other than Russian. “The fund will no longer be able to invest in foreign projects, and if the fund itself ever wants to get investors from outside the Russian public sector, this will also be impossible. It will also be impossible to operate with currencies such as the dollar and the euro,” Artem Inyutin emphasized.

Another source in the venture market also stressed that the imposition of sanctions will make life difficult for projects, especially those who have plans to sell in the European and US markets.

According to the founder of the investment company A.Partners Alexei Solovyov, the sanctions should not have a significant impact on VEB’s venture capital business. “The official website says that the sanctions will prevent VEB and Veb Ventures from attracting external financing in America, but the business model of Veb Ventures does not imply this anyway. This is an investment company that invests in innovative projects from the balance sheet of VEB itself, that is, the sanctions should not affect the company’s activities, ”says Solovyov.

Veb Ventures is investing in Russia, no Western counterparties or recipients of financing were noticed, respectively, the sanctions will not affect the company, Sergey Glandin, head of the practice of sanctions law and compliance at Pen & Paper, agrees. “The company’s accounts in dollars, euros and pounds sterling will be closed, but the company will continue to carry out all ruble transactions, as before. If the partners were Russians, they are not subject to US sanctions laws. And the owners of the assets in which VEB Ventures invested must decide for themselves whether or not to continue the legal relationship with this investor,” Glandin said.

According to Oleg Bratishko, managing partner of the Typhoon Digital Development venture fund, in recent years it has so happened that if government agencies enter as a shareholder in venture projects, the founders of the latter already foresee the likelihood of falling under sanctions. “That is, sanctions are initially laid down in risk management. I do not think that sanctions come as a surprise to such projects. Sanctions can seriously affect a project if Veb Ventures has special control over it, but such projects are not typical for venture funds. This is not very pleasant psychologically, but in fact it will not have any effect on performance or investment attractiveness. It’s just that investors in future rounds will have to explain about sanctions, but with the proviso that they will not bear the risks, ”says Oleg Bratishko.