Runa Capital's General Partners (left to right): Michael Fanfant, Ilya Zubarev, Dmitry Galperin, Konstantin Vinogradov, Dmitry Chikachev and Andre Bliznyuk
Runa Capital was founded by technological entrepreneurs Serg Bell and Ilya Zubarev (founders of Acronis and Parallels), and their MIPT university friend Dmitry Chikhachev.[10] The idea of the venture firm took shape in 2009 and was formally incorporated in 2010.[11] The partners contributed their own money into the first fund and raised capital from friends and other international investors including Achim Weiss and Andreas Gauger, founders of German hosting provider 1&1, and Edward Nicholson, former CEO of Brunswick-UBS.[12][6]
In 2011, Andre Bliznyuk joined Runa Capital as a General Partner.[13][14][15] In 2022, the firm promoted its principals, Konstantin Vinogradov and Michael Fanfant, to general partners focusing on Europe and the U.S., respectively.[8] In 2023, Serg Bell ceased his involvement in Runa Capital and resigned as a general partner.[16][17] In 2020, the firm added Jinal Jhaveri as a venture partner.[18][3][4]
Since 2020, Runa Capital operated the so-called Runa Open Source Startup (ROSS) Index, a quarterly ranking of the 20 fastest-growing open-source software startups (in 2023, it also published an annual report on the commercial open-source software trends).[19][20]
Funds
Runa Capital I, firm's first namesake fund was launched in 2010, reached its final size of $135 million by 2012[21] and was focused on investments from seed to Series B stage.[22] The initial idea was to fund globally oriented Eastern European startups in the fields of cloud computing, machine learning, virtualization, mobile and internet apps, but later the partners expanded their investment area to Europe and USA.[23][15]
Runa Capital II was launched in 2014 and reached $135 million by 2016 with large commitments from the first fund's backers.[23] The second fund aimed at Series A and B rounds.[22][24] The firm's new office was opened in California in 2015.[25]
Runa Capital III exceeded the target sum of $135 and reached $157 million in May 2020. The third fund followed the focus on deep tech with additional interest towards quantum computing startups.[23][6][3]
Runa Capital Opportunity Fund I was launched in May 2022 and raised $69 million by Autumn 2022.[26]
Investments
Runa Capital invests from $1 million to $10 million, largely in Series A rounds. From 2010 through 2022 it invested in over 100 companies, equally split between North America and Europe:[6][7]
In 2012, Runa Capital established the $30 million Quantum Wave Fund (Qwave) focused on startups in the field of quantum technology, which effectively served as a "materials science" arm for Runa Capital.[57][58][59][6][60] In 2019, Runa Capital became a limited partner in the second fund of crypto-focused venture firm 1confirmation.[61]
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