The founder of the social network "VKontakte" and the messenger "Telegram", Pavel Durov reported to the US authorities on attracting $ 850 million from 81 investors, writes the newspaper "Vedomosti." Information became known from the materials of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), published on Feb-13.
Investors in the documents are not disclosed, however, according to two sources of newspaper "Vedomosti", among them was a Russian businessman Roman Abramovich. A source familiar with major ICO participants told the publication that Abramovich could invest $ 300 million in the development of the messenger. The other noted that Abramovich was one of the first Russians to receive the right to invest in Durov companies. A representative of the company Millhouse, managing assets of Abramovich, John Mann did not comment on this information.
Among the investors of Durov's projects there were also founder and general director of QIWI Sergey Solonin and co-founder of Wimm-Bill-Dann David Yakobashvili. They invested in the messenger $ 17 and $ 10 million respectively.
Recall that the creator of Telegram Pavel Durov announced his intention to launch his own blockchain platform Telegram Open Network (TON) with its crypto currency, it became known at the end of 2017. In January, Bloomberg reported that Telegram plans to conduct the most ambitious initial coin offering (ICO), during which it expects to raise a record $ 1.2 billion.