Alexander (Sasha) Galitsky

Alexander (Sasha) Galitsky is co-founder and managing partner of Almaz Capital. He is a well-known innovator, entrepreneur and investor in Russia, in the U.S. and in Europe. In June 2010, he was appointed as the Board Member of the Skolkovo Fund.

Alexander serves on the boards of Acumatica, AlterGeo, Jelastic, Parallels and StarWind Software.

Prior to co-founding Almaz Capital, Alexander formed the Information and Communications Technology investment practice at Russian Technologies (“RT”), one of the first venture capital funds in Russia. Alexander was involved in investment community from 2003 as the President of the first TechTour-2004 event in Russia. Prior to his investment career, he founded and led as CEO five successful companies in the software, communications, semiconductor, internet and security sectors, including Elvees, ELVIS+, Elvis Telekom, EzWim and TrustWorks Systems.

With ELVIS+, a company he founded in the fall of 1991, he pioneered the development and commercialization of WiFi and FW/VPN technologies in collaboration with Sun Microsystems. Alexander has also been an individual investor and advisory/board member for a number of companies, including EzWIM (acquired by TMT Ventures), Magnifire (now F5, Nasdaq: FFIV), Parallels, Start-Telecom; NavMaps (now TeleAtlas), Acronis, S-Terra and PGP Inc.(acquired by Symantec). In 1993, he negotiated the first overseas and direct investment ever made by Sun Microsystems.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Alexander served as one of the top Technical Executive for the Soviet Space Agency and Defense Industry. During his tenure there (1979-1992), he was responsible for the design and implementation of satellite and spacecraft software, as well as computer and data communication systems. Alexander was the youngest national program leader for on-board computer systems and low-orbit data communication systems for the Soviet “Star Wars” response program. He has over 30 patents for numerous inventions, including parallel processing, WiFi and VPN Security technologies.

Forbse.ru named Alexander the top influencer on Russian IT and internet business in 2011. He was also nominated as the best European VC of the Decade by The Investor AllStars Awards 2012. Additionally, he was honored as the most influential person in the Russian IT and Internet industry, and named “Technology Pioneer” at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2000. Alexander is the Chairman of Advisory Board of Russian Venture Company and a member of Innovation Committee of Rostelecom. Alexander earned a PhD in Computer Science from joint authority of Defense Research Institute and MIPT.