Globally the developed countries economies exist in conditions of ever-increasing competition. In recent decades, the states whose economy is based on modern technologies, the introduction of innovations and the creation of a favorable environment for their emergence has gained some advantage. Venture investment is an important component of the innovation economy, without which it is difficult to imagine the rapid development of new technologies. Under these conditions, the task of the legal systems of developed countries has become to create a legal framework for venture investment: convenient, transparent and understandable for national and international investors.In Russia, an important stage in the creation of a legal infrastructure for investment was the adoption of the Federal Law “On Investment Partnership” in 2011, designed to provide the investment community with contractual organizational and legal forms of collective investment activity, taking into account the specifics of the implementation of venture (especially risky) business projects. The Russian investment partnership is a direct analogue of the American limited partnership (limited partnership).The paper considers the main advantages of an investment partnership over other forms of collective investment activity, as well as analyzes some aspects of the regulation of investment partnerships in Russia and limited partnerships in the United States. The author concludes that an investment partnership is the optimal form of collective investment activity provided for by Russian legislation. There is no doubt that the general proximity of the construction of an investment partnership and a limited partnership, common in the United States (and other common law countries), makes an investment partnership the most attractive form of attracting foreign investment to the Russian market.