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Putin has agreed to a non-recovery of budgetary venture investments

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"The Government, with the participation of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, the Accounts Chamber, the Prosecutor General's Office and interested development institutions, will ensure that changes are made to the regulatory framework that determines the admissible cases and the amount of non-repayment of venture investments and direct investments in the capital of companies implementing technological projects carried out using the funds of the state budget of the Russian Federation," Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote in the text of the instruction to the Government. The Cabinet of Ministers should submit its proposals to the President by June 1, 2020. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, Head of the Accounts Chamber Alexei Kudrin and Director General of the Strategic Initiatives Agency Svetlana Chupsheva are appointed responsible for developing approaches to irretrievable investments.

In February 2019, the Russian Venture Capital Fund (RVF) established by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives at the suggestion of the President in 2013 completed the phase of active investment. In total, about 350 IT-startups managed to visit the Fund's portfolio, but none of them managed to become the main companies of Runet comparable to Yandex or Mail.ru.

In 2017, Rustem Hayrettinov, vice president of InfoWatch, drew attention to the peculiarities of Russian venture capital financing, in particular, the effectiveness of government funding:

Investment funds in Russia are specific - either artificially created by the state, or specially withdrawn from a large company by order or to diversify the money, or rejected businessmen of the first wave, having the characteristic experience of those years.

They are disastrously disloyal to risk. If you lose state money, you will get acquainted with Sledkom, company money - with the security service of the company, private money of businessmen of 90s - with mountaineers. That's why managers of such funds don't think in terms of risk/profit, they apparently have a feeling of a soldering iron approaching from behind, as soon as they talk about risks.

"Unnecessarily complex, business-intolerant regulation has made public money unacceptable for start-ups. And this is also a barrier to economic growth, and to the development of the regions, and a serious constraint for universities," admitted today the head of the Accounting Chamber, Alexei Kudrin.

It should be taken into account that the tasks of private investors and public ones may not coincide. Thus, Deputy General Director - Investment Director of RVC Alexey Basov, summarizing the results of investment year 2018, noted in a comment for RBC that the funds with state participation have a special task: "to ensure innovative development in those industries that traditionally have a deficit of private investment, but have high potential in terms of national economy.

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