Starta Capital

In 2011, Russian entrepreneur Alexey Girin was inspired to set the gears in motion for Starta Capital, which he launched with Liudmila Golubkova and Sergey Vasilyev in 2013 as Russia's first seed-stage venture capital fund. Two years later, Starta had gone global, and by 2017, the fund had launched not one, but three unique ventures in the United States, all coming under the banner of the Starta Ventures brand. The fund's first cross-border project was Starta Accelerator, a three-month program for Eastern European founders, which brings them to New York with $130,000 of cash and in-kind services to make an impact, grow their global user base, and attract follow-on investment. Since its launch in 2015, accelerator co-founder Ekaterina Dorozhkina has put forth a variety of new tools to break through traditional venture capital barriers and empower the next generation of tech entrepreneurs. One particular barrier was simply the need for a dedicated office space for international entrepreneurs in New York. Too many founders arrive in America's East Coast tech Mecca, only to find it disorienting and return to their home countries. Instead, Dorozhkina envisioned Sputnik Space, which launched in the fall of 2017 as a co-working space for international entrepreneurs. On the investment side of the equation, Starta continued to break down VC barriers when it raised $5 million for the fund in an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). It went on to organize ICOs for several of its accelerator graduates throughout 2017 and achieved outsized returns for each. These results catalyzed the formation of Token Rockets, a two-step 'blockchainization' process for startups, which culminates in an ICO. With all of these initiatives under the umbrella of the Starta Ventures family, there is simply no better time to be a tech entrepreneur. Please stay tuned for more information, or reach out if you would like to join us on the rocket ship!