Diamond intrigues: Alexander Galitsky turned out to be an active investor in Ukraine

The Almaz Capital venture fund of Russian billionaire Alexander Galitsky, whose ex-wife recently committed suicide in an IVS, was involved in major projects to support the economy of Ukraine, Izvestia found out. A series of grants were allocated to Ukrainian companies after the start of their work — in March, May and July 2022. Among the recipients was, in particular, the manufacturer of cartridges. The businessman himself is listed as a member of the supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Venture Capital Association, through which this financing is provided. At the same time, the Galitsky Foundation openly declares that it has been supporting Ukraine since 2014 and has no ties with Russia. The details are in our material.

Grants for Ukraine

The Almaz Capital Fund of billionaire Alexander Galitsky turned out to be one of the major grantees under the Support Ukrainian Startups NOW program for Ukrainian IT companies, Izvestia found out based on open data from the website of the Ukrainian Venture Capital Association (UVCA). It is through UVCA that this program is funded. One of the grants was allocated on May 9, 2022, that is, after the start of the special military operation. The association's website notes that Almaz Capital became "one of the first sponsors" of the program along with "tech entrepreneurs from the USA."

"The program helps IT companies and startups that have remained in Ukraine and continue to support the Ukrainian economy," the program's information message says.

In July 2022, as stated on the UVCA website, another series of grants was allocated, this time among the recipients was the Ukrainian company Black Mark Ammo, which manufactures cartridges.

Izvestia also discovered the allocation of grants under the Support Ukrainian Startups NOW program in March 2022, when eight Ukrainian startups received assistance.

At the same time, Alexander Galitsky is listed as a member of the UVCA Supervisory board, however, not directly on the website from where his name was removed, but in a presentation about the association available for download.

Izvestia also discovered Galitsky's other connections with IT projects in Ukraine. So, it was reported that in 2023, the billionaire was invited to a conference of the Ukrainian division of the international community Flowmates, which unites developers of open-source and low-code technologies, about which data has been preserved in Ukrainian specialized sources.

They're not hiding anything.

As the Izvestia analysis showed, Almaz Capital Fund has a rather complex corporate structure with separate legal entities not only in the USA, but also, in particular, in Germany, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands.

The website of the international fund explicitly states that its co-founder is Alexander Galitsky, a native of Zhytomyr, a billionaire.

Next to Galitsky's photo, it says: the fund helps "Ukrainian startups survive the war ravaging their country," and Ukraine is the fund's favorite investment destination.

In March 2014, i.e. after the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation, Almaz Capital "stopped investing in companies with any ties to Russia," the fund's website says. "We are not only one of the largest investors in Ukraine over the past 5 years, but also a long—time active supporter, participating at the management level in UVCA (Ukrainian Venture Capital Association)," it also says.

In particular, Almaz Capital has invested more than $50 million in more than 15 companies with Ukrainian founders or teams, including companies such as Adjoy, Arcycle, Content Analytics, DMarket, Hover, Jelastic, Mobalytics, Maketime, Petcube, Speedsize, Starwind and 3DLook.

"The startup teams have demonstrated amazing resilience," and despite the ongoing conflict, "Ukraine remains one of our favorite investment destinations," Almaz Capital's website says.

Sit on two chairs

Meanwhile, as Izvestia found out, UVCA removed references to Galitsky not only as a member of the supervisory board, but also in relation to various aspects of the association's activities. However, these mentions were cached by Google's search algorithm and still ended up in the search results.

However, when trying to navigate to the specified search result, the user will receive a 404 error – "the page does not exist."

It can be assumed that for "ties with Russia" (he has Russian citizenship), at some point, Alexander Galitsky began to be "canceled" in Ukraine — this concerns not only the removal of his name from UVCA resources, but also criticism of the billionaire's invitation as a speaker to the Flowmates conference, which was mentioned above. The Ukrainian media then called this invitation a "strange idea," since "Galitsky is an investor who met with Putin."

Meanwhile, back in 2022, the billionaire himself made a number of attempts to avoid being perceived as a Russian investor, Izvestia found out. For example, in response to a request from the American research company Pitchbook, Galitsky stated in April 2022 that after the start of his project, "we needed to prove that we were a good fund. The problem is that our first fund was called Almaz Capital Russia Fund I, and the word Russia attracted additional attention to us."

In the same email to Pitchbook, Galitsky wrote: "Our first foundation was a great success, and many Russian businessmen wanted to become our partners. I was totally against it. I was categorically against any government funding."

According to Izvestia, Galitsky, in addition to Russian, has Dutch citizenship, and the principality of Monaco is indicated as his place of residence in the documents of one of the companies associated with him (available to the publication).

According to Dmitry Krasnov, an honored Lawyer of Russia, Alexander Galitsky is primarily at risk of reputational costs due to his ongoing ties with Ukrainian business.

— We can talk about the moral side of the matter, that, for example, we have Russian companies in need of financing, and his fund invests in Ukrainian startups. But Russia is not at war with Ukraine, we are only conducting our own, so how Galitsky manages his money or the company's money is his own business, as long as it does not violate our legislation. In the criminal sense, the reason for the consequences comes only when there is evidence that a person has contributed to terrorist activities or sponsored the Ukrainian armed forces. But it should be checked by the competent authorities and check what amounts were sent, when and to whom. Without this, any accusations are groundless," the lawyer noted.

As follows from the data "Contour.Focus", Alexander Galitsky continued to conduct business in Russia until 2024: He remained a co-owner of the information security software company Elvis-Plus until it was bought out by one of Rostelecom's structures.