DST plans to invest 1 billion dollars in social media startups in 5 years

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Beijing time February 19, according to foreign media reports, Russian Internet investment group DST chief executive Milner Yuri Milner, said in an interview recently, in the next 5 years, DST will continue to increase the investment in various social media start-ups, DST's total investment in the business area is expected to reach $1 billion trillion.

In early 2009, Mr Milner was looking for the right investment for DST. Instead of waiting for Facebook's invitation to invest, he flew directly to Facebook headquarters in Paroo, Calif., and held talks with Facebook Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg. The move has laid a solid foundation for DST to invest $200 million in Facebook and get nearly 2% per cent of the latter.

Mr Milner reckons that 75% of all his working hours are spent on business trips, "If I plan to invest heavily, I have to first interview the person in charge of the investment." ”

Last December, DST led the investment of American social game developer Zynga. Mr Milner, 47, said that over the next 5 years, DST would continue to invest more in a global range of social media start-ups, with a total investment of $1 billion trillion and a major location outside Russia. "We have been paying close attention to 50 of the world's most investment opportunities," Mr Milner said in an interview with Businessweek, the US financial journal. In the Internet industry, I want DST to be a very important investment company. ”

DST's broad investment principle is to acquire a small stake in a company that has initially stabilized its business or plans to sell its initial stake. Typically, the sooner an investor invests in a start-up, the higher the return on investment returns. "If startups are not ready for an IPO, then DST is a good choice," said Mark Pincus, Zynga's chief executive, Mark Ping. Mr Milner has a unique understanding of the social media industry, where startups can work together to achieve development goals. ”

Last December, DST led a 180 million dollar investment in Zynga. Other investors include Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital fund, created jointly by internet Pioneer Anderson (Marc Andreessen) and others.

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Mr Milner said all of DST's investment plans focused on the "long-term development" of the investment target and considered their investment style to be similar to Warren Buffett Warren. Although Mr Milner did not disclose the specific names of potential investors, the industry believes that DST will likely invest in start-ups such as micro-blogging sites Twitter and mobile service website Foursquare.

Tom Taulli, an independent IPO market analyst, Tom Tolly that DST has become a leading player in the global Internet investment arena. Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crolly (Dennis Crowley) and Twitter spokeswoman Gianna Samsen (Jenna Sampson) did not respond to speculation in the industry about the new DST investment intentions.

DST has already invested in a number of Russian internet companies, including Russia's largest social networking site vkontakte.ru and the Russian portal, Mail.ru. Statistics published by comscore, the US Internet traffic agency, show that Russian netizens are active in social networking sites. As of January this year, the average Russian internet user will stay on the social networking site for 9.3 hours. By contrast, every Internet user in the United States had an average stay of 4.5 hours in each major social networking site in the same period.

People familiar with the matter also revealed that DST's investment in a portal network is planning to bid for the ICQ Instant Messaging service of AOL, the US internet company. ICQ currently has more than 42 million users in Russia, with a share of more than 50% in the country's instant messaging market. Analysts expect the Russian web portal to offer ICQ a possible 90 million to 200 million dollars.

Web services: "Walking Encyclopedia"

DST's way of investing also hides a lot of risk. Although DST's investment tends to be large, the number of shares gained is small. In other words, because DST has less equity, the company lacks sufficient voice for the day-to-day operations of its investors, and for its market strategy. Despite this, Mr Milner visits Zynga every month and gives his personal opinion to Zynga's management, "Mr Milner is a trustworthy advisor," says Zynga. ”

Other investors also agreed with Pinnas's view. As Anderson, a Facebook board member, said: "Mr Milner and his investment team have led the Internet industry to a new level of investment and have increased my knowledge." In the Global Internet investment field, they are ' walking encyclopedia '. As long as our investment performance to catch up with their one-third, I will be very happy. ”

Mr Milner said DST would not urge Facebook to rush to an IPO, and that even after Facebook's IPO, DST could still hold a stake in Facebook, "as long as Mr. Zuckerberg is the head of Facebook, we continue to be investors." He also revealed that DST's investment strategy has begun to bear fruit and has achieved the company's "overall profitability".