Nastas created his first U.S. venture capital tech fund in 1986, taking the Michigan fund model to Canada in 1992, ‘missionary’ selling it to investors and creating his first international fund. From Canada, he personally led expansion & created funds in Europe (2), then Africa (3), Russia (2) and Kazakhstan (1), once again employing a bootstrapped, ‘missionary selling’ model that utilized relationship building to build the partnerships to raise money from pension, gov’t, sovereign wealth and corporate investors. Increased assets managed from $4M to >$500M.  

Nastas funds by asset classes, deal structure & vintage include: Fund-of-Funds: Africa (1994), $5M; Venture Debt: Canada, (1992) $100M; Sub-Sahara Africa (1993), $280M;  Royalty/Cash Flow: US, (1986) $4MM; France/Germany (1992) $5M; Europe (1994), $10M; VC/PE: South Africa, (1996) $30M; Russia, (1997) $32M; Corporate VC: Russia (2005) $5M; Innovation Grants: Kazakhstan (2010) $75M  

His IPO/M&A successes include Neogen (NEOG: NASDAQ, EV=$3.2B mkt cap), Applied Intelligence Systems Inc. (acquired by ESI, ESIO: NASDAQ), Personal Bibliographic Systems (acquired by Thompson Financial, NYSE: TRI, EV=12x), Sunty (Cyprus) and Suntyco (Russia) – acquired by Tata Group (Mumbai, India), Tata Global Beverages (London). Other M&As include Sotsgorbank, Rolti, Flexoprint, Lada Xleb, Saratov Wallpaper & MRCI to name a few. 

From 1990-2013 Nastas lived overseas––investing across N. America, Europe, former Soviet Republics & Africa, recruiting locals & managing multicultural teams in operations, finance, investment, sales & marketing with offices in cities including: North America:  Detroit, Montreal, Toronto & Vancouver, Europe:  Paris & Luxembourg, Africa:  Nairobi, Kampala, Cape Town & Johannesburg, Russia: Volgograd, Samaria, Saratov, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Sakhalin, Moscow, Kazakhstan:  Astana

In 2013, he moved from Russia to Michigan. To re-immerse himself in the U.S. ecosystem after being an expat for 24 years, he served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence in venture creation at the tech transfer offices of Michigan universities from 2014-2018 with four companies formed––2 at the intersection of sports/athletics/health care, 1 in digital health care & 1 in 3d print mfg. 

From 2016, Nastas served on former Governor R. Snyder’s team as his Board of Director appointee to the State of Michigan’s VC fund of funds, with $215M invested in 19 VC funds.