SBT Venture Capital, the venture arm of Russian state-controlled savings bank Sberbank, appears to be among the participants in Uber’s latest equity funding round. Led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, this $3.5 billion deal took place this spring, valuing the US startup at $62.5 billion.
SBT’s participation was revealed by BNE Intellinews, an online resource covering business topics in emerging markets, which refered to an emailed statement from Sberbank.
The amount of SBT’s contribution has not been disclosed, but BNE Intellinews puts it at about $10-$25 million, based on its other tech investments.
This is not the first time that Uber receives Russian money. In February, Mikhail Fridman’s LetterOne (L1) announced a “strategic investment”of $200 million in a previous Uber round. The participation of two other Russian oligarchs, Ziyavudin Magomedov and Alister Usmanov, had been revealed even earlier.
R&D partnership
In September 2015, Sberbank and Uber announced a partnership “to explore the co-development of financial technologies with global potential.”
In particular, Uber showed interest in Sberbank’s mobile payment technologies. These may improve the ease with which new Uber users verify their account and pay securely, believes the US company. Uber also saw in Sberbank’s entrepreneur online banking systems a potential source of improvement for the administration and legal processes involving self-employed drivers.
“Sberbank is at the global forefront of financial technology and we are excited by the opportunities of working with them to deliver even more choice for riders and drivers alike,” Niall Wass, Uber’s SVP of operations throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, stated when announcing the partnership.
In turn, Sberbank considered providing the growing network of Uber partner-drivers in Russia with different vehicle financing opportunities.
Funding startups across Europe, the USA and Asia
Sberbank launched its corporate venture fund in 2012 for domestic and international investment purposes. Since then, SBT has invested in a variety of international startups, including:
- Sequent Software, a California-based provider of trusted service manager (TSM) and mobile commerce software and services (investment in 2013);
- Walkbase, a Finnish publisher of retail analytics solutions (investment in 2013);
- Moven, a New York-based money management startup (investment in 2014);
- Advanced Merchant Payments (AMP), a South-East Asian fintech service (investment in 2014);
- IdentityMind Global, a California-based provider of risk management solutions for e-commerce (investment in 2015);
- Mobeewave, a Canadian startup that develops NFC mobile payment acceptance services (investment in 2015);
- eToro, an international social investment platform (investment in 2015).
- GridGrain, a US startup which has developed an enterprise software platform for real-time data access and processing (deal in February 2016).
SBT Venture Capital is managed by MoneyTime Ventures in Moscow.
