Polymerbyt produces over 750 different products for the kitchen, bathroom, garden and for kids. The company produces over 50 million goods annually at its two plants in Moscow.
We have been investing in Russian private companies since 2011 and got involved in a variety of industries and business models, ranging from private healthcare (Yusupov Hospital) to mobile games development (WebGames). Thanks to this experience we realized that specialization leads to greater efficiency. We also built expertise in certain sectors, especially FMCG, to which we also developed an attachment. Our first and by this day one of the most successful investments was a manufacturer of household plastic products, Polimerbyt. Not only do we keep holding this until today, but we have increased our stake to a controlling one. We continue to consider acquisitions in this sector and adjacent ones as a strategic player in the household goods market.
Launched in 2019, the Pura Vida Holding started with a totally opportunistic acquisition of a near-bankrupt natural smoothie and juice producer Be True. We managed to turn the business around within a year, grew its revenue severalfold and achieved profitability. Inspired by this success, we continued to look out for strong niche brands in the healthy food segment and in 2023 acquired two companies: Velle and Mojo Cacao. The Pura Vida Holding presently combines these three producers of natural healthy foods (juices, smoothies, non-diary milk, oat yogurts and oat-based meals and chocolates) and demonstrates rapid organic growth.
We have walked the path of diverse experiments not only with multiple industries and business models, but also with different asset classes and stages of investment. We have made more than 20 venture capital investments in Russia and abroad. Most of these companies were sold or died a brave death in the cold VC fields. A substantial part of the early-stage investments was made personally by Petr Zhukov as a serial business angel. These are the companies that remain in our portfolio. All of them are currently profitable and regularly pay dividends. Our ownership in those varies from 2% to 10%, and we do not take an active role in management.
We have long ceased to be a classic fund with a sole objective of geniting returns. Therefore, the sale of any asset is a difficult emotional decision for us. First of all for us an exit is a farewell to the team, which is often intertwined with the Indigo team due to our management approach. Also, it is a farewell to our brainchild, a business, that we have grown from scratch or almost from scratch together with the other founders. Such was the case with Tendertech and Yusupov Hospital. But everything has its logical end. We gained a profit, and the buyers have received high-quality growing enterprises.