Skolkovo
was launched in 2010 to create a Russian version of Silicon
Valley.
WASHINGTON
-- During the heady days of the U.S. "reset" policy with
Russia, the high-tech sector emerged as a potential
centerpiece for bilateral commercial and scientific
cooperation, underscored by Internet-savvy Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev’s 2010 visit to Silicon Valley.
But a surge of Russian cash into the U.S. tech sector in
recent years has prompted federal authorities to alert
start-ups in a key American innovation cradle about potential
espionage via Russian venture capital firms financing their
operations.
The Boston division of the FBI is taking this warning to U.S.
tech firms with Russian funding, and to the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), a partner of Russia’s Skolkovo
initiative, which was launched in 2010 to create a Russian
version of Silicon Valley.
Lucia Ziobro, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s
Boston office, specifically cited Skolkovo’s relationship withRussian
truckmaker KamAZ,which
supplies armored vehicles to the Russian military, as possibly
worrying.
"As far as the Skolkovo institute is concerned, you have
foreign defense contractors in the same sort of area of
business that could potentially result in U.S. technology
being acquired by that Russian defense firm, and then being
given to the government," Ziobro said.
Russian government-backed investors in the United States have
dismissed the FBI’s warnings as baseless, and the agency has
not presented evidence of Russia using venture capital fund to
steal technology.
Ziobro said her office’s discussions with start-ups and
research hubs with Russian partners was part of a broader
outreach program to inform the tech sector of the possible
dangers of working with foreign investors.
"Our outreach talks about the general foreign intelligence
threat, be it from China, be it from Russia, be it from, you
know, any other country," she said.
The
Russians Are Here
The FBI's Boston office began calling attention to Russian
tech investment in the United States following a white paper
it produced on the subject late last year, Ziobro said.
The office then issued a notice to Boston-area technology
companies, colleges and universities identifying partnerships
with Russian entities and venture capital companies as
potential vehicles for Russian espionage.
Then, in an op-ed published the "Boston Business Journal" last
month, Ziobro urged U.S. companies to remain vigilant when
deciding whether to partner with Russian investors,
specifically citing the Skolkovo Foundation, which oversees
the development of the high-tech center currently under
construction outside Moscow.
"The foundation may be a means for the Russian government to
access our nation’s sensitive or classified research,
development facilities and dual-use technologies with military
and commercial applications,"Ziobro
wrote in the op-ed.
Aside from Skolkovo, Ziobro did not identify any other Russian
entities specializing in the high-tech sector in her op-ed.
But two investments vehicles funded by the Russian government
have a presence in Massachusetts, home to thriving technology
and biotech industries.
In 2011, state-funded Rusnano, a $10 billion fund focusing on
nanotechnology, invested a total of $50 million in Boston-area
nanomedicine firms, BIND Biosciences andSelecta
Biosciences.
The same year it invested $35 million in the Boston renewable
fuels firm Joule Unlimited.
BIND declined to comment on the FBI warnings, while Selecta
and Joule did not respond to inquiries.
Rusnano currently has $1.2 billion invested in U.S. companies,
including biotech, energy, coating and hardware firms, Evgeny
Druzyaka, vice president of Rusnano USA, told RFE/RL.
Druzyaka declined to comment on the FBI’s statements. But
Dmitry Akhanov, chief executive of Rusnano USA, told "The
Boston Globe" that he thought Ziobro’s op-ed was "an April
Fool’s joke."
The
seven-story Hypercube building is the nerve center of
Russia's Skolkovo hub, largely by virtue of the fact
that it is the only functioning building to have been
built.
Boston is also home to the U.S. headquarters of the
state-funded Russian Venture Company (RVC), which has around
$65 million invested in U.S. companies and venture funds,
according to RVC-USA chief executive Axel Tillmann.
RVC has also sponsored the Massachusetts start-up initiative
MassChallenge.
Tillmann said he was perplexed by the FBI’s comments about
Russian venture capital.
"We are helping bilateral collaboration on
business-to-business levels, and that is our main mission," he
told RFE/RL. "I don’t know a single [piece of] evidence that
ever came across my desk, or information I ever heard, that is
an iota of suspicion that would give any credence to the FBI
assertions."
Russia’s
Silicon Valley
The Skolkovo Foundation declined to comment on the Boston FBI
office’s suggestion that the tech initiative presents a
potential espionage threat to U.S. partners.
The foundation teamed up with MIT last year to create a
graduate university called the Skolkovo Institute of Science
and Technology, or Skoltech, that will be located at the
Skolkovo research hub outside Moscow.
Four years after Medvedev announced the innovation project and
made it the centerpiece of his drive to modernize and
diversify Russia’s oil-and-gas-dominated economy, the
sprawling 400-hectare territory is still years off completion.
The seven-story "Hypercube" building is the nerve center of
the hub, largely by virtue of the fact that it is the only
functioning building to have been built. It is home to a study
space and gadget workshops for the joint initiative with MIT.
In the building’s airy ground-floor lobby, a man in a suit
this week looked on as a technician tested a remote-controlled
four-wheel robot, which used pincers to lift a miniature
bottle of whiskey and pour the amber spirit -- unsuccessfully
-- into a plastic cup.
Next month, the Hypercube is slated to host an annual start-up
fair featuring dozens of nearby pavilions.
Four
years after the project was announced and made the
centerpiece of a drive to modernize and diversify
Russia’s oil-and-gas-dominated economy, the sprawling
400-hectare territory is still years off completion.
So far the Skolkovo Foundation has used substantial tax breaks
to lure 37 major industry players into what it calls its
"innovation center."
MIT spokesman Nathaniel Nickerson told RFE/RL that the
university’s collaboration with Skolkovo "is intended to help
create a new institutional paradigm, bringing together
education, research and innovation."
"Programs such as Skoltech are intended to build intellectual
relationships in a transparent environment, centering on open,
fundamental, publishable research," Nickerson said in emailed
comments.
Nickerson added that in all of MIT’s international
collaborations, the university "is very careful to comply with
all U.S. export-control regulations."
"We also have and continue to participate in various outreach
programs conducted by various federal agencies, including the
FBI and Department of Commerce," he said.
Tom
Balmforth contributed to this report from Skolkovo, Russia