Cisco Launches Euro VC fund

The Deal magazine runs a story on Cisco preparing to launch a new VC fund aimed at technology companies in Central and Eastern Europe, with commentary on the deal from Alexei Miller, Executive VP at DataArt.

Cisco is teaming on the initiative with 3TS Capital Partners Ltd., a private equity and venture capital firm with offices in Budapest, Prague, Vienna Warsaw and Bucharest, Romania, and said it will make the anchor investment in the new $44 million 3TS Cisco Growth Fund III fund. From a private equity perspective, according to Cisco, Eastern Europe is “probably a little more advanced than Russia”.

"In a sense the entrepreneurial spirit has always been there, but the social and economic environment was not always nurturing," added Alexei Miller, executive vice president of DataArt Enterprises Inc., a software development company that has offices in Russia and Ukraine. "Today there's an opportunity for more innovation and more investment."

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The story has been picked up by The New York Times: view article