Runa Capital Announces First Seed Investment of $2 Million in Russian Mobile Software Startup

Runa Capital Announces First Seed Investment of $2 Million in Russian Mobile Software Startup

Russian Venture Capital Fund Targets Innovative Voice-Enabled Mobile Social Networking Platform

MOSCOW, November 24, 2010/PRNewswire/ --     Runa Capital, a new Russian venture capital fund, today announced its
first investment of $2 million in OnAir3G, a voice-enabled mobile social
networking platform. Moscow-based OnAir3G is a start-up founded by online and
mobile pioneer Andrey Vasilevsky who also co-founded SmartCom, a developer of
navigation software for Symbian, Windows Mobile and J2ME.

    Today's announcement marks Runa Capital's first investment since
launching in August 2010 with the goal of offering $30 million in seed
financing to start-ups in rapid growth tech sectors. These include cloud
computing, machine learning, virtualisation and mobile & internet
applications.

    "There is a huge amount of innovation happening in the ever-expanding
market for mobile software. This is why it is critical to ensure that
promising start-ups are given the opportunity to accelerate their entry into
this space," said Dmitry Chikhachev, managing partner of Runa Capital. "The
team at OnAirG has been involved in some pioneering work in both mobile
software and Internet-based services. This is why we are extremely excited to
be a part of what may well be the next killer mobile application."

    In 2007, OnAir3G founder and CEO Andrey Vasilevsky sold SmartCom to
Yandex, Russia's largest internet company. The innovative mapping application
is currently used every day by millions of motorists to avoid traffic jams in
a number of major Russian cities. OnAir3G aims to replicate this success with
a powerful new voice-enabled mobile social networking platform designed for
use on 30 million internet-enabled mobile phones currently used in the
Russia.

    "The current economic climate poses a number of challenges for start-ups,
particularly when it comes to bringing new innovations to market," said
Andrey Vasilevsky OnAir3G founder and CEO. "In a short space of time Runa
Capital has been able to bring to bear its significant expertise in the world
stage to help accelerate our plans and ambition for success. We are very
proud to be named the first investment opportunity from this exciting new
venture capital fund."

    OnAir3G will be publicly launched in Q2 (April to June) 2011.

    About Runa Capital:

    Runa Capital is an early stage venture capital fund established to pursue
opportunities in the rapidly growing areas of Cloud Computing, Internet and
Mobile Applications. Runa Capital is run by a team of successful
entrepreneurs, most of whom have worked together for over 15 years. It is a
united team with broad geographical and cross-industry experience, as well as
an extensive professional network. Runa Capital investment team members
possess an excellent track record in tech investments.

    Runa Capital's investment strategy focuses on early stage opportunities
in Russia, where the venture capital is scarce and deal flow abundant, as
well as Russian tech teams abroad. The key execution point is to select
promising teams and drive and support them in the global marketplace, turning
them into international champions.

   
    Press Contact
    Satyen Dayal - Spark Communications for Runa Capital
    Email: Satyen@Sparkcomms.co.uk
    Tel: +44(0)207-436-0420

Source: Runa Capital

Press Contact: Satyen Dayal - Spark Communications for Runa Capital, Email: Satyen@Sparkcomms.co.uk, Tel: +44(0)207-436-0420