Almaz Capital

United States · Venture Capital And Private Equity Principals

Almaz Capital was founded in 2008 to invest in early stage startups in the CIS (commonwealth of independent states) and CEE (central and eastern Europe) region with the backing of Cisco Systems and the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development). Almaz Capital set out to invest and build a bridge between investee companies from the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union to resources and connections in Silicon Valley. With that intention the firm opened its first offices in Silicon Valley and Moscow. During that period Almaz supported many startups with origins in Russia, such as QIK (acquired by Skype), Yandex (NASDAQ:YNDX) or Parallels (acquired by Corel). In March 2014, after Crimea was annexed by Russia, Almaz Capital stopped investing in companies with any ties to Russia. In 2017 Almaz moved its European operations to Berlin and focus shifted from the countries of the CIS to the CEE region (central and eastern Europe). Following the crackdowns in Minsk in 2020 Almaz stopped investing in Belarus, another former Soviet state. We are helping our Ukraine-based startups survive the war ravaging their country. Not only are we one of the largest investors in Ukraine over the last 5 years, but we are also a long-time supporter actively involved at the governance level at the UVCA (Ukrainian Venture Capital Association). Almaz Capital invested over $50m in over 15 companies with Ukrainian founders or teams including Adjoy, Arcycle, Content Analytics, DMarket, Hover, Jelastic, Mobalytics, Maketime, Petcube, Speedsize, Starwind, and 3Dlook . Startup teams have shown amazing resiliency and despite the war Ukraine remains one of our favorite investment destinations.