By: Dawn

Dawn — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:33:58 +0000

I’m humored that the Russians are pursuing this because of the time period involved. While looking for more ethically palatable financing than the 100+% financing being offered by the Russian government for what National Institute of Standards & Technology calls “smart wallet,” I met an entrepreneur around 2003-4 at a venture capital event held by Grant Thornton. I have a friend that at the time ran a venture capital fund. Smart wallet did not fall within the investment guidelines. The fund was for early-early financing (I’d already personally handled that to 2 proof of concept prototype demo systems) or late-late financing…just before realizing an edit strategy . I introduced the entrepreneur to my friend. The entrepreneur is an engineer & had designed a more efficient (cost effective) & cleaner method to drill oil from shale. The entrepreneur was looking for funding to build a $1 million prototype. Energy at the time was cheap, investment firms considered investment in alternative methods to conventional drilling would yield low returns on investment…my friend struck down financing the young venture. A No investment firms except Hermitage had much interest in investing in energy at all. The entrepreneur eventually found an Australian financier about 2 years later. The fact is that for the timeframe involved in the newer charges energy was cheap & the Russian government is greatly inflating the value of the Gazprom shares at the time. Taking out the risk associated with an investment being in Russia, investors still had little interest in investing in energy even in the US that is considered far more politically stable.

Comments on: Russia Says New Fraud Charges Against Browder

By: Dawn