91����

For more than a decade, Sergey Portnov built Parimatch into a global iGaming brand—first, as marketing director, later as CEO and owner. Now he is stepping beyond the company that defined the first chapter of his career to back a different kind of bet: the founders building the next generation of technology companies.

He is launching SP Ventures, an investment and advisory firm built on a conviction he earned by running his own company.

“The hardest part of building a company is rarely the money,” says Portnov. “It’s everything money can’t buy: judgment you only earn by making real mistakes, the network that opens the right doors, a partner who has already walked the road ahead. That’s what I want SP Ventures to give the founders.”

That belief shapes how the firm is supposed to work. Rather than advising from the outside, SP Ventures will operate inside the businesses it backs—taking equity instead of fees, so it only does well when the founder does. It is a deliberate inversion of the standard advisory model, where the bill arrives whether or not the advice works. Alongside capital and hands-on guidance, founders gain access to a community of entrepreneurs who have built and scaled companies and have valuable experience to share.

“For more than a decade, Parimatch has been the defining work of my career and has grown into something far larger than I imagined when I started. I’ll always be proud of it,” said Portnov. “But my interests have grown beyond a single industry and the management of one business, however large.”

SP Ventures will back companies across technology, education, and other fields shaping the future—early or established—united less by stage than by ambition and the conviction to build something lasting. As part of the transition, Sergey Portnov is stepping back from operational management of Parimatch while deals with local operating partners are being finalized and the business moves into its next phase.

SP Ventures is already in conversation with its first companies—businesses where capital, hands-on guidance, and a network of operators can compress years of hard-won lessons into something faster.

For Portnov himself, the ambition is personal: not to build one more company himself, but to stand behind the next generation of founders.

“Every great story has a sequel,” he adds. “Mine is about enabling other founders to write theirs.” 

Sergey Portnov will lead as founder and chairman. The firm’s portfolio already features its first investment project—Cyprus-based Trinity Private School, focusing on education as one of its core future-oriented pillars. SP Ventures is also reviewing opportunities and expects to announce its next investments in the coming months.