The Sverdlovsk Venture Fund (SVF) in the Ural region announced plans to invest a total of $1m in three high-tech projects in the field of blockchain tech, biochemistry, and energy, Firrma.ru reported, citing a source at the regional fund.

One of the investees, Sapfir, is working on a new IT system to aid regional and municipal authorities in their activity. The system will function as a blockchain platform.

NPO BioMicroGels, a five-year-old company, is busy developing and producing safe reagents based on natural polysaccharides which would help clean petroleum product contaminated water and soil. The reagents could also be used as additives or base for detergents.

Set up last year, Uralsko-Sibirskaya Neksan has been working on a novel heat exchanger design. When/if brought to fruition, the project also calls for the setup of small-scale production with further upscaling.

Earlier this month SVF invested about $380,000 in a local developer of surgical instruments and titanium implants for neurosurgery called Zibus. Back in December 2016, the fund supported iRidium, a local software developer for IoT-based automation, in a $52,000 deal.

SVF was set up in 2006 as a private-public partnership; the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and the Sverdlovsk Regional Government were among the co-founders. The fund typically invests no more than $400K per project.