A new Russian venture capital fund, Runa Capital, has been launched by Serguei Beloussov, chairman of Parallels who also serves on the board of directors of Acronis, and Alexander Galitsky, founder of Almaz Capital Partners. The fund will offer approximately $30 million in seed financing to early-stage Internet and software companies.

With a mission of providing capital, expertise and strategic leverage to elevate talented Russian technology teams into globally competitive businesses, Runa Capital will focus its investments in rapid-growth sectors including cloud computing, machine learning, virtualization, mobile and Internet applications.

“These teams face a number of challenges as they transform from technology concepts to successful businesses. Given our background and expertise, we’re able to proactively set them up for success by helping create high-quality products, develop and execute marketing strategies, and find international partners,” said Dmitry Chikhachev, managing partner of Runa Capital. “We involve best-in-class experts and mentors, and leverage our affiliated companies and professional networks to help our startups grow. That’s what makes our approach really unique and attractive to early-stage companies.”

Runa Capital investment activities will be supported by Runapark business incubator. The incubator will provide the environment where promising Russian startups will become world-class technology companies.

Runa Capital list of venture partners include some well-known high-tech entrepreneurs and investors: Andreas Gauger and Achim Weiss, co-founders of the world’s largest hosting provider 1&1, Ilya Zubarev, co-founder of Rolsen and Acronis, Igor Borovikov, founder of the largest Russian software distributor Softline, Charles Ryan, сhairman of UFG Asset Management, and Igor Daniloff, founder of ‘Doctor Web’ antivirus company.

More information on Runa Capital is available on the fund’s website: http://www.runacap.com/.