Catch the wave. The most interesting summer events for startups you should attend



    Summer is the best time to collect not only mushrooms and berries in the forest, but also investments. It is in the summer that the coolest competitions for startups take place. In the article I will tell you which contests are the most interesting and what can be expected from them.

    Consider the three largest and most varied in format events.

    Startup village


    Startup village is a grandiose open-air festival organized by the Skolkovo Foundation. This year it will be held on June 2-3 on the territory of Skolkovo.



    If you have a startup, then this is a great opportunity to express yourself, show your project to hundreds of entrepreneurs, investors, experts in various fields, as well as government representatives. Such events are attended by top officials of the state, last year Dmitry Medvedev was with a large delegation, the total number of participants exceeded 12,000 people from 19 countries.


    Dmitry Medvedev tests the gadget of one of the startups at Startup village 2015

    Startup village is a continuation of the Road show “Startup tour”, during which Skolkovo expert teams visit 11 cities of Russia from February to April, as well as Minsk, Belarus and Almaty, Kazakhstan. During the qualifying round in each city, 3 projects are selected that will receive an invitation ticket to the Startup village and 1 best project that will participate in the Startup village competition without participating in the preliminary selection.
    Participants of the Startup tour who win the final of the Startup village competition will receive 2 million rubles each for the development of their projects from the START Program for Supporting Small Forms of Enterprises.

    Despite the fact that the Startup tour has already ended, anyone can take part in the startup competition by submitting an application on the Startup village website. This is the only competition under consideration with paid participation, but the amount is not large, and the profit from participation is huge. This is an opportunity to win from 300 thousand to 3 million rubles, find an investor or partner, receive feedback from recognized experts in your field, and demonstrate the project to thousands of participants.



    The competition has 27 nominations in 5 areas:
    • strategic computer technologies and software;
    • innovative biomedical technologies;
    • biotechnologies in agriculture and industry;
    • energy efficiency and energy saving, including the development of innovative energy technologies;
    • nuclear technologies: new industrial technologies;
    • space technology.

    Questions that the startup has to answer during the presentation are traditional:
    • what problem does the project solve
    • is there a demand for a solution to this problem
    • market size and competitors
    • proposed solution to the problem and its advantages
    • why exactly are you able to succeed with your product
    • what do you need for the project

    Everything is as short as possible, the presentation is held in a pitch format (4 minutes), the task of which is to attract attention and begin to form the investor's interest. The presentation should be in English, a speech in Russian or English.

    Each winner of each nomination will receive 300,000 rubles.
    1st place - 3,000,000 rubles
    2nd place - 2,000,000 rubles
    3rd place - 1,000,000 rubles


    Winners of Startup village 2015

    Event site https://startupvillage.ru
    Registration until May 22, 2016

    GenerationS.


    Now let’s turn 180 degrees and look at a completely different competition in format. GenerationS is the Federal Accelerator of Technology Startups, held annually by the Russian Venture Company (RVC).
    The GenS format is radically different from the Startup village. Here, the participant first submits the project for preliminary (formal) examination and, after passing it, enters the pre-accelerator, where he undergoes online training and finalizes his project, so that he can further structure his project, pack it beautifully and correctly present it to the investor. The importance of structuring the project and how to do it I wrote earlier in the article “Why the investor refuses. Work on the bugs. "



    Last year, the process was structured as follows:
    • twice a week, participants watched video lectures specially recorded for the contest by leading experts
    • after each lecture, it was necessary to answer the test and complete homework, the essence of which was to finalize the project using the knowledge and techniques obtained at the lecture (problem statement, market analysis, business model, competition, and so on).
    • homework was assessed by experts who rated from 0 to 10 depending on the completeness of the section and how competently the participant used or did not use new knowledge.
    • The projects that scored the most points went to the semifinals, where they were interviewed by Skype experts.
    • projects that successfully passed the semi-finals fell into corporate accelerators.
    • corporate accelerators already had face-to-face sessions with a representative of the largest companies who selected projects that corresponded to their strategic areas of development and could be implemented in production or in business processes.

    2566 projects were submitted for the competition, 1757 projects were transferred to the pre-accelerator, 1191 completed the program until the end (data from the report of RVC representatives at the congress of the business incubators association). More than 500 experts, including your humble servant, as well as more than 200 investors and corporate partners, were involved in evaluating projects.



    All finalists selected for corporate accelerators received 2 million rubles each for the development of their projects from the START Small Business Development Fund.
    Super finalists received cash prizes in the amount of: 1st place - 8 million rubles, 2nd place - 1 million rubles, 3rd place - 500 thousand rubles. There were also dozens of nominations from the contest partners, for example, my colleague received iPad Air from SAP and a certificate of consulting from this company for integrating his product with the SAP platform.



    GenerationS is an event where every startup should take part. I, as an expert in the competition, talked a lot with projects, each of them, even if I did not qualify for the semifinals, received a very big profit. These are new contacts, feedback from dozens of experts, a deeper understanding of your project, learned to structure and beautifully present your project.
    This year, the timing of GenS has moved a bit. On June 21, 2016, the grand opening of GenerationS -2016 should be held, from June to September the collection of applications.

    This year, it was decided to divide the projects into two streams:
    Stage 1 - from the idea to the prototype;
    Stage 2 - from the prototype to production.
    It is planned 8 different tracks in the areas of the national technological initiative (STI) and corporate tracks.

    Event website http://generation-startup.ru .
    We are waiting for the start of registration.

    IIDF


    IIDF (Internet Initiatives Development Fund) is currently one of the most active investment funds established by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) at the suggestion of Vladimir Putin.

    The IIDF prepared two events at once in the summer:

    1. Industry acceleration. The selection of projects is carried out in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the areas of smart city, agriculture and industry. The fund is ready to invest from 2.1 to 325 million rubles in each company, as well as to assist in business development, access to new markets and access to strategic customers.
    A prerequisite is the availability of a prototype and first sales.
    Applications are accepted until June 23, 2016.
    Event website: www.iidf.ru/startups/accelerator/iot

    2. 10th set in the accelerator FRII.
    • Projects are selected in three areas:
    • only sales are launched (turnover up to 200 thousand rubles / month).
    • sales growth began (turnover of 200 thousand rubles - 1 million rubles / month).
    • sales are growing slowly, or have ceased to grow (turnover of 1 - 5 million rubles / month).




    Requirements that IIDF shows for projects wishing to get into the accelerator:
    • Availability of a base product (MVP) that can be sold to customers
    • the achievable turnover of the company should be at least 300 million rubles per year in 3-5 years, i.e. the product should be focused on the mass market
    • at least 2 key project participants must be ready to work on the accelerator site in Moscow full time

    Despite such requirements, the IIDF each has more than 500 applications, of which the fund selects 30 of the best projects.



    What the fund gives:
    • an individual tracker (expert), who will develop an individual growth plan together with the team and help keep focus on the result
    • an intensive three-month program for the development of the company
    • an educational program and individual expert advice on various aspects of your business
    • investment of 2 , 1 million rubles for 7% of the share in the project

    Applications are accepted until June 23, 2016.
    Event website: http://www.iidf.ru/startups/accelerator/

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