The glasnost on Sand Hill Road is growing.
The leaders of Russia’s top technology, venture capital and nanotechnology initiatives gathered at the Global Technology Symposium in Menlo Park, Calif., on Wednesday with the goal of deepening ties with the power brokers of the U.S. tech economy. They also want to return to Russia with the lessons — and the connections — to accelerate Russia’s bid to transform its oil and gas economy to one based on technology and innovation.
“We are looking for role models. Venture investing is an art, not a science, so why go and reinvent the wheel,” said Steven Geiger, chief operating officer of Skolkovo, a massive technology hub being built outside Moscow. “If you go and learn how this art is practiced and associate with the people who know how it is practiced, the more you’ll be able to do it yourself. You might not be a Michelangelo right away, but you will be painting.”
And, with the goal of creating in 15 years what has taken the Silicon Valley 60 years, the Russian federal government is pushing several initiatives at once.
Launched in 2010 with a $1.5 billion annual budget, the Skolkovo Foundation is charged with building a technology hub on the outskirts of Moscow that includes five research clusters (space, nuclear, IT, biosciences and energy), a technopark packed with R&D labs and early stage start-ups, a post graduate university done in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a city.
As the physical construction of the 600-hectare business park continues — the first phase is slated for completion in 2014 – the foundation is focused now on extending its network with corporate partners and venture capitalists to make the cluster a success.
It is leveraging domestic resources, notably the Russian Venture Company, which operates as a $1 billion fund of funds and is fully backed by the Russian government. It is also leveraging Rusnano, a 5-year-old nanotechnology-focused private equity firm which has committed roughly $7.5 billion.
Skolkovo and the two private equity firms have been sharing an office on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park for the past year — a move that has both helped coordination between them and extended their outreach efforts to players in Silicon Valley.
As conference goers rotated from the coffee bar, to panel discussions to outside for smoke breaks, Skolkovo officials met with Partner David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners and later a senior vice president from Cisco Systems to sign agreements. Like 29 other venture firms who previously signed on, Bessemer now will be positioned to co-invest in Skolkovo start-ups and get help from Skolkovo when their portofolio companies want to expand into Russia.
For Cisco, the deal solidified a conversation that began about two years ago.
“We’re going to start R&D there (at Skolkovo) this summer,” said Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of video and collaboration for Cisco. DeBeer said Cisco, which has committed $1 billion to the Skolkovo initiative over a ten-year period, will launch with 30 engineers and grow the team by hiring talent from Russian universities. The team will focus primarily on video and speech recognition.
Including Cisco, Skolkovo has signed deals with 16 corporate partners including IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, and Siemens, to both commit funding and staffing resources to build R&D labs at Skolkovo.
“Innovation is not an exclusive concept. Great ideas can come from anywhere,” said De Beer. “They (Russia) have the top engineering and mathematical talent in the world.”
Источник: blog.wsj.com