DST Global

DST Global (DST) was founded by Yuri Milner in 2009 for the purpose of making minority investments in the most significant and fast growing Internet companies. Today DST is the largest investment group globally to exclusively focus on Internet related companies. DST assets under management exceed 10 billion USD and its portfolio includes the world’s leading social network Facebook, the world’s leading microblogging service Twitter, the world’s leading social gaming company Zynga, leading e-commerce company Groupon, China’s largest e-commerce companies 360buy and Alibaba Group as well as other fast growing Internet assets. DST is headquarted in Hong Kong.
Investments
The firm became known globally after leading an investment of $200 million in Facebook at a $10 billion valuation in May 2009 and launching a tender offer of $100 million to the employees of Facebook in July 2009. Subsequently the firm continued to buy shares in the company and is now one of the largest institutional shareholders in Facebook. In January 2011, DST and Goldman Sachs co-led a $500 million investment round in Facebook, valuing the company at $50 billion.
In December 2009, DST led the $180 million investment in Zynga which had a primary and a secondary component..
In April 2010 DST led a $135 million investment in Groupon at a rumored $1.35 billion valuation. Subsequently, DST invested again as part of Groupon’s $950 million round in January 2011.
In March 2011 DST Global has joined a group of investors committing hundreds of millions of dollars for 360buy.com, China’s largest online retailer.
In June 2011 DST Global led $100 mln investment round in Spotify
In July 2011, DST Global co-lead $112 mln series B financing round for Airbnb
On 01 August 2011, DST led a significant round of funding in Twitter
In August 2011, DST Global invested $50 mln in ZocDoc
In december 2011, DST invested in online payments company Klarna
DST’s way of structuring deals, where they buy both preferred stock from the company and common stock from employees, is becoming a new way to invest in startups. In fact, some industry people recognise these deal structures as “DST deals”.
Yuri Milner, in an interview in February 2010, mentioned that DST monitors close to 50 companies globally and that these companies can be investment opportunities. DST plans to invest more than $1 billion in social web companies around the world over the next five years.
Relationship with Mail.ru Group
Yuri Milner is the founder of both Mail.ru Group and DST Global. He currently serves as the non-executive Chairman of Mail.ru Group Mail.ru Group was originally called Digital Sky Technologies (DST) and started making international investments from its balance sheet. As part of Mail.ru Group’s IPO the company renamed itself to its current name. DST Global was formed as a separate entity to co-invest with Mail.ru Group. Post Mail.ru Group’s IPO, DST Global is the sole vehicle for further international investments. The company is now fully independent of Mail.ru Group.

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