The National Intellectual Development Foundation, better known as Innopraktika, which is headed by Vladimir Putin's daughter Katerina Tikhonova, has acquired a stake in Russian drone manufacturer Geoscan, according to a report by the independent publication Verstka.
The fund has owned 10% of the company since November 16, according to the counterparty verification service Kontur.Focus. The stake was bought from Geoscan founder Alexei Semenov, who owns 87.5% of the company. A further 2.5% of the company is controlled by its CEO, Alexei Yuretsky.
The Geoscan group is Russia's largest manufacturer of civilian aviation drones, as well as software for photogrammetric data processing.
In the summer of 2023, Ukraine imposed sanctions on the on the grounds of its products being “integrated into the production chain of military and/or dual-use goods and services.” This came three months after the head of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Andrei Nazarov, announced that Geoscan’s local branch, Geoscan-Ufa, was producing drones for the war in Ukraine.