Profotek, which raised 300 million rubles from VEB Ventures, will file for bankruptcy

Profotek JSC, a developer of innovative transformers for the electrical industry, is filing a claim with the arbitration court for its own bankruptcy due to the appearance of relevant signs. This is recorded in the Fedresurs database. The notice is published two weeks before the filing date. The lender is Web Ventures LLC (VEB Ventures venture fund of VEB.RF group).

RB.RU sent a request to Profotek, but at the time of publication had not received a response.

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, in 2012 the company belonged to Rusnano and the Cypriot offshore company Fot Capital since 2022, there is no information about the owners in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. As of February 2024, the legal entity was in the process of reorganization by merging other legal entities.

Profotek’s revenue in 2023 amounted to 111.6 million rubles, and net loss reached 190.5 million rubles.

In July 2024, Profotek was mentioned as a resident of the Moscow Technopolis SEZ and a manufacturer of equipment for smart digital energy. The company was to establish connections with partners in Saudi Arabia and sell transformers in India and Turkey.

In January 2022, the venture fund VEB Ventures invested 300 million rubles in Profotek JSC; the deal was structured by providing a convertible loan from VEB Ventures, RB.RU writes. This mechanism allows the investor to receive a stake in the startup only if it is successful. It was planned that the company would expand its scale with the funds received. It was expected that Profotech products could be installed in at least 10% of the total number of reconstructed and newly built substations. At that time, Sergei Vakhterov, General Director of Rusnano Management Company, expressed the idea that Profotek would be of interest to strategic investors in the future.

In October 2023, Rusnano published a report warning of the risks of its possible insolvency. By the end of 2023, Rusnano reduced its debt by 28 billion rubles to 69 billion rubles, with most of the remaining volume secured by state guarantees, Interfax reported. The debt in the amount of 48 billion rubles was accounted for by bank loans. The company used commercial loans backed by government guarantees for venture capital investments.