While their partners’ track record of building cutting-edge P2P networks together certainly roots them to technology, they are ultimately free to invest in the best people and ideas from all walks of life.

Experience

ASI was established in 2003 as an equal partnership by four founding engineers at Skype technologies to hold a minority stake in Skype. At the end of 2005, ASI sold its stake to eBay and now operates as a private investment vehicle. Today they are a team of about 10 people managing 100 million Euros of the partners’ assets and growing an independent investment vehicle spanning multiple generations.

How much do they invest?

While most venture firms are obligated to exit their investments after a set number of years, our investments don’t have a sell-by date: they can and therefore plan to invest term, where appropriate. They frequently co-invest with other leading investors and are always happy to consider doing so. Their average investment is probably around 500K EUR, but they have done and continue to do deals on either side of that figure.

How do they work?

Before making an investment, their decision-making process involves:

1. First consideration, where they want to get excited about your team and product.
2. Analysis of your business proposal, where they look in detail at your team, technology, financials, business model, customers, and strategic partners, and prefer to meet you in person.
3. Term sheet, where they agree to the value of your business, the amount and terms of investment.
4. Due diligence process, where they verify the value of your technology and business as well as assess its legal aspects.
5. Signing the shareholders’ agreement, where they formalize their investment.

This makes a difference to them

Their investment targets tend to:

• Have R&D at the core of their nature.
• Be in the seed or early stage of the company life-cycle.
• Be built by people who want to be global leaders in their field.
• Have technology or technology-based service providers for their customers.
• Be based in Eastern Europe, Russia or Asia, and demonstrating global ambitions.
• Own intellectual property in their core technology area.

Key People

Tauno Tats - CEO
As CEO, Tauno runs all of the operations, management, administration and business development at ASI. He’s also in touch on a regular basis with all of ASI’s portfolio companies.
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Margus Uudam - Head of Venture Capital Investments
Margus is responsible for all of ASI’s investments, from managing the search for new projects to the development of existing ones.
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