Our Story

We are hands-on investors with a focus on scrappy entrepreneurs building large scale tech-enabled businesses

Entrepreneurial experience

Runa is managed by successful serial entrepreneurs and seasoned executives with vast startup experience. Our founding partners have built several global software companies, including Acronis, Parallels and Acumatica.

This entrepreneurial experience enables us to better understand founders’ pain points and identify the best solutions.

Transatlantic network

Our investments span over 13 countries in North America and Europe. This robust transcontinental network allows founders to develop strategic relationships around the globe.

Runa is uniquely poised to help founders scale their businesses in both domestic and global markets. We pride ourselves on helping founders evaluate and enter different geographies, create competitive strategies and develop acumen on when, how, and where to scale.

Product and operational expertise

Strong expertise in technologies allows us to identify the best deep tech deals and to scale our portfolio companies. Our partners have built a few tech startups with $100M+ revenues and know how it works.

Partly because of this, Runa is a partner of choice for such open source champions as the most popular web server Nginx and a fast-growing database MariaDB.

Our operational experience allows us to provide insight and support for critical tasks such as recruiting, fundraising, growing sales, and instituting formal organizational structures to support a scaling business.
Serg Bell and Ilya Zubarev founded Parallels, a large web hosting automation and virtualization company
1999
Serg Bell and Ilya Zubarev founded Acronis, a global cyber protection company that later became a unicorn after a $147M round by Goldman Sachs in 2019
2003
Dmitry Chikhachev, Serg Bell, and Ilya Zubarev launched the $135M fund, Runa I
2010
30+
Runa expanded its portfolio to include over 30 impressive companies, such as Nginx, Mambu, and Zopa
2012
Runa opens its Palo Alto office. Our US-based partner Andre Bliznyuk leads the expansion
2014
Our second $135M fund was raised with an eye towards both North American and European investments
2014
60+
Runa’s investments spanned more than 60 companies, including Brainly, MariaDB, and Smava
2016
Partner Dmitry Galperin led our German expansion with a new office in Berlin
2018
Runa launched its third fund at over $150M for new startups!
2019
5 GPs
Konstantin Vinogradov and Michael Fanfant become General Partners in London and Palo Alto, respectively
2022
EU HQ
Runa returns its HQ to Europe and chooses Luxembourg as its global base
2022
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Investment thesis

Runa predominantly invests in early stage startups at the Series A stage and also completes Seed and Series B investments. Our initial check typically ranges from $1M to $5M, and we continue investing in our portfolio companies as they scale. We offer flexible round structures, frequently leading rounds as well as co-investing with other firms.

We support founders who are building disrupting companies across three areas: B2B SaaS, deep tech (ie., middleware, open source platforms, machine learning, and cloud infrastructure), and software for regulated industries (ie., fintech, edutech, and digital health)
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B2B SaaS

The availability of data and an abundance of APIs will drive the next generation of enterprise software

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Cloud-based spend management platform for businesses

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Cloud-based enterprise resource planning software

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Cloud-based retail banking platform

Deep Tech

The exponential growth of data will require new infrastructure for processing and consumption

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Open source high-performance web server and load balancer

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Open source enterprise database management system

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Web application firewall and vulnerability scanner

Regulated Industries

Tech companies revolutionize conservative verticals: financial services, education and healthcare

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Leading consumer lending marketplace in Germany

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Knowledge-sharing platform connecting 150M+ students globally

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Electronic health record and medical practice management platform

Quotes

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Runa’s team assisted us greatly with corporate structure and insights into specific issues for non-American founders. They were involved day to day, in matters ranging from general operational issues to detailed constructive criticism of our fundraising deck.

Gus Robertson CEO, NGINX

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Runa offers more than just money and expertise. They're investors that truly care about the teams that they back and are willing to go above and beyond what is typically expected of an investor to ensure success for their entrepreneurs.

Michael Howard CEO, MariaDB