A Russian government-backed fund of funds is putting $10 million into the Menlo Park venture capital firm behind Twitter, Zynga, Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and other tech firms.
Russian Venture Capital II LP, a UK-registered fund managed by the government-established Russian Venture Company, is putting the money in to IVP XIII, a $750 million fund from Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) targeting later-stage U.S. technology and digital media companies, Quintura’s blog writes.
IVP’s portfolio has, over the years, also included MySQL, Akamai (NSDQ: AKAM), Ask and TiVo (NSDQ: TIVO). It was involved in Zynga’s big $180 million round in December and led Twitter’s big $35 million round last February 2009.
Russian Venture Company was created in 2006 as a fund of private funds, now headed by a former long-time Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) exec in Moscow. Its second such cash pot was set aside this summer in London.
Major Russian online investor DST has Facebook, Zynga and Groupon stakes.