The ru-Net Foundation of Leonid Boguslavsky acquired a stake in the I Love Running Family (ILRF) project. One of the founders of the project and its main owner Maxim Zhurilo wrote about this on his Facebook page. “We have a new partner and shareholder in I Love Running Family. This is Leonid Boguslavsky and his ru-Net foundation, ”Zhurilo said. The deal is closed, he said and confirmed a representative of ru-Net.
ILRF unites several sports schools: running (I Love Running), swimming (I Love Swimming), cycling (I Love Cycling), etc. The main company of the project, according to its website, is I Love Running LLC. Its founders are Zhurilo, his wife Irina Moskovkina and Vladimir Pasekunov (each had 33.33%). The latter went out of business in the fall of 2016, selling a stake to partners. And on December 28, Anastasia Vladimirova became a co-owner of 20% of I Love Running, while the shares of Zhurilo and Moskovkina decreased to 50 and 30%, respectively. Vladimirova conveyed through a representative that she owns the stake in the interests of ru-Net. She also owns a stake in the sports club Angry Boys Sport, founded by Boguslavsky, as follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
Ru-Net acquired a stake in ILRF under the cash-in scheme, that is, all the money for the stake goes to the company’s capital and its development, Zhurilo and Vladimirova noted. The funds received will be used to improve training programs, develop new services, including for teaching current students and new regions, to expand the school’s network, Zhurilo said. New areas will also develop, including medical (rehabilitation, medical tests), added Vladimirova.
What kind of partner
Boguslavsky is one of the largest investors in Internet projects. Through the ru-Net fund, he invested in Yandex and the Ozon.ru online store. He also invested in the American cloud service DataDog, the Indian coupon service FreeCharge, etc. In 2016, Forbes estimated the fortune of Boguslavsky at $ 1.2 billion (5th place in the ranking of the richest Russians).
The parties did not disclose the amount of the transaction. For her, the company is estimated “at several million dollars”, only Zhurilo noted. Alexey Soloviev, managing partner of the venture capital fund Prostor Capital, believes that 20% of the ILRF could cost the investor 100 million rubles, and the company itself was estimated at 500 million rubles.
The entry into the capital of ILRF is Boguslavsky’s initiative, Zhurilo said, although other potential investors have also shown interest in the company over the past year. “However, partnership with Leonid is closer to us in spirit and outlook on the further development of the company,” he says. ILRF has an excellent team, a well-scalable business model, excellent economic indicators, explained Vladimirova of the fund’s interest in the project.
The school operates in 42 cities of Russia, as well as in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia and the United Arab Emirates. For 4.5 years of the school’s existence, according to its own data, 15,000 people have become its graduates. In 2016, the number of students increased by 70%, the plan for 2017 is to grow by another 70-100%, taking into account the development of new products, Zhurilo hopes. Now, according to him, negotiations are underway to open branches of the school in Belarus and Bahrain, Zhurilo said. The revenue of I Love Running in 2015 amounted to 39.4 million rubles. (3 times year-on-year), net profit – 11.8 million rubles. (more than 6 times; no data for 2016).
This deal is unique for the Russian venture capital market, says Solovyov: investors like Boguslavsky invest, as a rule, in high-tech and innovative projects. Although ILRF is not such a project, it is attractive for investments, since the niche for training amateur athletes in Russia provides huge opportunities for growth and is rapidly expanding, the expert explains.
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