DST Global

DST Global’s predecessor was Digital Sky Technologies: Milner founded the technology investment firm NetBridge in 1999, and in 2001 NetBridge merged with Port.ru, Russia’s largest e-mail service, to form Digital Sky Technologies, a mix of Russian internet companies and US investments. In 2009, Milner founded DST Global to focus exclusively on internet investments globally; its co-founders are Saurabh Gupta, John Lindfors, Rahul Mehta and Tom Stafford.⁠[1][1][1][2][3]

DST Global invested in Facebook from 2009 to 2011. Milner befriended Mark Zuckerberg while assessing the investment in early 2009, and the investment later that year made him famous in a Silicon Valley still reeling from the financial crisis. Milner’s practice is not to take board seats or voting rights in the companies he invests in, which he says lets him back competitors without creating conflicts of interest; Facebook later stated that DST, as a passive investor, had no voting rights or board seat.⁠[2][4][4][4][4]

The first fund, DST Global I, also acquired stakes in companies including Zynga, Groupon and ICQ.⁠[5]

In September 2010, Digital Sky Technologies rebranded: its Russian operating business became Mail.ru Group, while the investment fund kept the name DST Global. Mail.ru Group then sought a listing on the London Stock Exchange, with a market value of about US$5.7 billion at its offer price; DST Global, which handles the international investments, was not part of the listing.⁠[5][6][1]

In 2011, DST Global launched its second fund, DST Global II, which raised about US$1 billion; the fund and its co-investment vehicles invested in Twitter that year.⁠[5][2]

In March 2011, DST Global bought a US$500 million stake in the Chinese e-commerce company JD.com, then known as 360buy.⁠[1]

In August 2011, DST Global opened its China headquarters on the 67th floor of Two International Finance Centre in Hong Kong; its four investment professionals made up the firm’s largest single team, led by former Goldman Sachs banker John Lindfors, and studied opportunities across Asia, including China, India, Indonesia and South Korea. The firm expected to devote 40% of its capital to the region over the following five years.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

On September 22, 2011, an investor group including Silver Lake, DST Global, Yunfeng Capital and Temasek announced a US$1.6 billion tender offer for shares in the Alibaba Group; people with knowledge of the matter said it valued Alibaba at more than US$32 billion.⁠[7][7][7]

DST Global launched DST Global III in 2012 and DST Global IV in 2014. After Facebook’s 2012 IPO, DST Global sold its Facebook holdings in 2012 and 2013; after Twitter’s 2013 IPO, it exited Twitter in May 2014.⁠[5][2][2]

During this period, DST Global funds also invested in companies including Airbnb, SpotifySpotifySpotify is an audio streaming subscription service offering on-demand music, podcasts, and audiobooks through a free ad-supported service and a paid Premium subscription. Its parent company, Spotify Technology S.A., is incorporated in Luxembourg, has its principal operations in Stockholm, Sweden, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker SPOT). It helped move the recorded-music business from buying and owning music to on-demand streaming and is one of the largest audio streaming subscription services by users.Open the full entry, Zalando, the German incubator Rocket Internet and Alibaba, and in 2014 led a US$210 million funding round for the Indian e-commerce company Flipkart.⁠[5][5]

In August 2015, DST Global’s fifth fund, DST Global V, reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it had raised US$1.7 billion; a source close to DST said that, unlike previous funds, it had no Russian backers.⁠[5][5]

On November 5, 2017, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published an investigation drawing on the Paradise Papers and other records, stating that Russia’s state-owned VTB Bank had directed US$191 million into a DST Global fund that bought a large stake in Twitter in 2011, and that a subsidiary of Gazprom had heavily funded an offshore company that partnered with DST Global in a large investment in Facebook. The investigation also said there was no indication that the Kremlin gained influence over Twitter or Facebook or received inside information as a result; Facebook and Twitter said they had properly reviewed the investments.⁠[4][4][4][4]

Milner acknowledged that VTB was one of the partners that helped fund the Twitter and JD.com investments but said less than 5% of his firm’s investment funding came from Russian government institutions and that VTB was a passive investor; in an open letter he said that if this had been an influence operation the firm would have sought control, whereas in the Facebook and Twitter deals DST asked for no board seats and assigned all its votes to the founders.⁠[4][4][4][8][8]

DST Global launched DST Global VI in 2018, DST Global VII in 2019, and DST Global VIII and DST Global IX in 2021.⁠[2]

On August 17, 2026, the AI video and image creation platform Higgsfield announced a US$400 million Series B round at a US$5.4 billion valuation, led by DST Global, with participation from new investors including Tribe Capital, Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Smash Capital, Fifth Wall and Intel Capital, and existing investors including Accel and Menlo Ventures. Milner said he looked forward to supporting the Higgsfield team as it builds the next generation of AI tools for visual creation.⁠[9][9][9][9]

Companies DST Global has invested in include Airbnb, DoorDash, Facebook, Robinhood, SnapchatSnapchatA visual messaging and social app developed by Snap Inc., launched in 2011, with photo and video messaging, Stories, augmented-reality Lenses, Snap Map and Spotlight.Open the full entry, Spotify, Stripe, Twitter and WhatsApp; Milner’s side says DST Global funds have invested in more than 80 companies worldwide, none of them based in Russia.⁠[10][2]

According to Milner’s side, DST Global funds have more than 150 investors from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia and have raised no capital from Russian investors since DST Global II in 2011; capital from the Russian institution VTB Bank made up less than 3% of the total raised since inception, all before 2011, and was fully returned by 2014, while the early backer Alisher Usmanov last invested in DST Global funds in 2011. DST Global does not accept retail investors, has offices in Silicon Valley, New York, London and Hong Kong, and its funds’ registered office is in the Cayman Islands.⁠[2][2][2][2][3][2][3]

DST Global: Official website: https://dst-global.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]