Rusnano

Rusnano

Founded	Moscow, Russia (2007 (2007))
Headquarters	Moscow, Russia
Key people	Anatoly Chubais (Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO)
Number of employees	470 (2010)[1]
Website	en.rusnano.com

Rusnano (Russian: Роснано) (formerly Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies) is a government-owned^[2] joint-stock company established as a $10B Private Equity and Venture Capital Evergreen Fund by the government of Russia and aimed at commercializing developments in nanotechnology. Rusnano's task is to develop the Russian Nanotechnology industry into one whose products will be worth 900 billion rubles by 2015.^[3] Rusnano is focused on making growth stage investments and to this end was lead investor in Quanntena Communication's $79M Series G round of preferred financing. Quantenna Communications then successfully completed its initial public offering under the ticker QTNA in October 2016.^[4] According to a press release issued by Rusnano, this investment will leverage synergies between Quantenna's portfolio and a number of nanotechnology initiatives that are under way at Rusnano.^[5] Rusnano was also the largest investor in MEMS timing pioneer SiTime, which was acquired by Megachips in October 2014.^[6]

History

The law which resulted in the creation of the "Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies" was proposed by several members of the United Russia party on June 2007. The proposal passed its first reading in the State Duma on June 14^[7] and its final reading on July 4. The upper house and the Federation Council, approved it on July 6.^[8] Initially organized as a state corporation, the company was re-registered on March 11, 2011 as the open joint-stock company Rusnano.^[9]

In 2009, Rusnano established an international award in the “nano” field – the Rusnanoprize.^[10] The prize is awarded annually in one of the following fields: Optics and Electronics, Nanomaterials, Surface Modification, Medicine, Pharmacology, Biotechnologies, and Green Technologies. The prize fund is worth 3 million rubles.

On 7 September 2007 Vladimir Putin appointed Leonid Melamed, a former deputy CEO of RAO UES, the Director General of Rusnano. On September 22, 2008, President Dmitry Medvedev appointed Anatoly Chubais as the Director General of Rusnano. This same decree removed former Director General Leonid Melamed from his position. Despite this, Melamed is now the president of the European telecommunications giant Effortel and remains on the executive board of the company's Supervisory Council.^[11] In 2015, Melamed was temporarily placed on house arrest in an investigation into accusations of "wasting public money".^[12] Soon after the arrest, at least five high rank Rosnano managers left Russia.^[13][14]

Management bodies

The CEO of Rusnano is appointed by the Decree of the President of Russia. The Supervisory Council is the highest management body of the corporation. The Supervisory Council appoints members of the Executive Board.

Members of the Supervisory Council as of December 31, 2009^[15]

1. Andrey Fursenko, Chairman, Supervisory Council, Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
2. Vladimir Dmitriev, Chairman, Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)
3. Mikhail Kovalchuk, Director, Russian Research Center Kurchatov Institute
4. Andrey Kokoshin, First Deputy Chairman, State Duma Committee on Science and Science-Intensive Technologies
5. Dmitry Mezentsev, Governor, Irkutsk Oblast
6. Leonid Melamed, President, Effortel
7. Elvira Nabiullina, Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation
8. Vladimir Nazarov, Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation
9. Mikhail Pogosyan, Director General, Sukhoi Company
10. Vasily Popik, Deputy Head, Presidential Experts’ Directorate of the Russian Federation
11. Mikhail Prokhorov, President, ONEXIM Group
12. Evgeny Fedorov, Chairman, State Duma Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship
13. Viktor Khristenko, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation
14. Husein Chechenov, Chairman, Federation Council Committee on Education and Science
15. Anatoly Chubais, Chairman, Executive Board and Chief Executive Officer Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies

Funds

The source of financing for the activities of Rusnano in 2008 and 2009 was an asset contribution of 130 billion rubles (US $4.39 billion) from the Russian Federation, received in November 2007. During 2009 capital of Rusnano decreased by 58.768 billion rubles and at year end stood at 76.638 billion rubles (US $2.59 billion). The change in the corporation’s capital is attributable to the return of 66.4 billion rubles of the asset contribution to the Russian Federation, expenditures of 3.617 billion rubbles in fulfillment of the corporation’s purposes, and net income of 11.251 billion rubles earned largely from temporarily free monetary resources deposited in accounts at commercial banks in accordance with recommendations from the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation.^[16] Rusnano also intends to attract additional investment by issuing state-guaranteed bonds^[17]

In 2011, Rusnano suffered US $2.9 billion of net loss under Russian Accounting Standards and closed down 6 investment projects worth $300 million. The company seems to have a shortage of money. In March 2012, Rusnano announced it was closing 13 investment projects estimated at $600 billion, the official reason for the decision was the rejection of the co-investors. In April 2012 announced that it was looking to sell a 10% share by the end of 2012. This is just the beginning of a plan to make 40% of the company private.^[18]

Activities

In 2009 the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies received 634 requests for project cofinancing. The projects have aggregate budgets of 1.355 trillion rubles of which 712.3 billion rubles were requested from the corporation. A significant percentage of the requests were for new production or modernization of existing processes and fixed assets.

All requests that enter the corporation go through a multi-staged system of expert evaluation. In 2009, for various reasons, 467 projects (including some that had been received in 2008) were denied cofinancing. The Supervisory Council of the corporation approved 54 projects during 2009, projects in solar energy, mechanical engineering, metalwork, nanoelectronics, medicine, and venture financing. The total budget for these projects is 181.6 billion rubles of which 86.6 billion rubles were requested from the corporation. Fifty-three projects that have passed all evaluation steps and the Science and Technology Board will be brought to the Supervisory Council in the first half of 2010.

In sum during 2008–2009, the Supervisory Council of the corporation approved 61 projects. Their budgets total 192.3 billion rubles and include 92.4 billion rubles that RUSNANO will cofinance. A considerable share of these projects is oriented toward the priority areas for modernizing the economy of the country that President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev has declared. These 61 projects are forecasted to earn revenue from sales in excess of 130 billion rubles annually by 2015. In 2008 and 2009 the corporation financed 17 approved projects, disbursing 32.2 billion rubles through the end of 2009. Four manufacturing projects earned their first revenues in 2007—176.5 million rubles.

Investment projects

All Rusnano projects^[19] can be grouped into 6 clusters:^[20] 1 solar energy and energy saving^[21]

The firm applies an environment friendly approach by financing projects that explore the possibilities of energy technology.

2 nanostructured materials;^[22] 3 medicine and biotech;^[23] 4 mechanical engineering and metal working;^[24] 5 optoelectronics and nanoelectronics;^[25]

Rusnano has acquired minority stake in Plastic Logic in 2011. The company planned to set up a factory in Zelenograd where they planned to manufacture lightweight, flexible plastic e-readers and related products, however these plans appear to be cancelled since Plastic Logic decided to shift its focus towards licensing its existing technology instead of actually manufacturing any products.^[26][27]

6 infrastructure projects.^[28]

One of the most interesting infrastructural investment that Rusnano has backed is the one of BiOptix: the American patented product enables label-free biomolecula analysis in real time without isotope labeling and with minimal human handling.

In 2011 a new subsidiary Liotech was created for production of high-capacity Lithium-ion batteries in cooperation with Chinese factory Thunder Sky.^[29] In 2012 Liotech was noted by state auditors for possible corruption-related violations. In 2016 Liotech entered bankruptcy process.^[30]

Subsidiary

• Rusnano Capital. deals with the involvement of Russian and foreign institutional and strategic investors for the implementation of nanotechnology projects in Russia. The Foundation provides transfer of advanced technologies and attract international expertise in the Russian projects, and also stimulates the development of financial infrastructure of the wound in the field of nanotechnology.
• The Rusnano Metrological Center. the subsidiary provides metrological support necessary to companies in the nanotechnology industry and produce quality, competitive, safe products and to minimize barriers to its output to international markets.
• Rusnano Inform. created in 2010 to promote the development of Information technology for Rusnano.
• Rusnano USA, Inc. established in December 2010 to manage investments and investment activity for Rusnano in North America.
• Rusnano Israel Ltd. formed in December 2011; considered as Foundation of Infrastructure and Education program, established in order to represent the interests of Rusnano in investment, business and non-profit activities in the territory of Israel. Activities of Rusnano Israel Ltd. includes the search for innovative Israeli companies in the field of nanotechnology, which meet the investment criteria of "Rusnano", as well as assistance and support of "Rusnano" in the process of technological, business and financial analysis (due diligence) of Israeli companies, and further successful transactions by direct venture investments. The company also supports the implementation of Russian-Israeli inter-governmental agreement on co-financing of R&D in nanotechnology. In addition, Rusnano Israel Ltd. focused on the transfer of Israeli technology to create in Russia manufactures nanotechnology products.

References

External links

• Official website
• Nanotech projects at RusNanoNet.ru (in Russian)