East-West Digital News 21 May 2012
A pioneer among foreign investors on the Russian venture scene, David Waroquier of Mangrove Capital Partners is a recognized expert of the local Internet ecosystem and a reference partner for several Russia-based ventures. He shared with East-West Digital News his vision of the fast-growing Russian online retail market, its challenges, and the exit scenarios for investors in this industry.
This interview is an excerpt from an in-depth research paper on Russian e-commerce that will be released soon.
What makes Russian e-commerce attractive from your point of view as an investor?
Russian e-commerce is still a relatively young industry, with penetration rates that are well below Western standards. The organic growth of the country represents a unique upside potential. Combine this with a growing middle class willing to spend, an Internet penetration that’s still about half that of Western economies, and an appetite for consumers in the regions to access deeper inventories of goods, which otherwise they could not easily buy locally, and you have an ideal mixture of driving forces to build massive e-commece companies in the country, if executed well.
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