Irina Kalashnikova: “We expect the number of mobile solutions to increase significantly this year”
On June 15, the acceptance of applications for the participation of the IT track of the GenerationS competition will end. For a long time, the direction of information technology remained the most popular among young entrepreneurs and sought after among investors. Today, Irina Kalashnikova, curator of the Web Ready contest and IT track Generation S, spoke about past projects of the past years, the desires of investors and ideas that are particularly in demand in the market.
- How did his idea for the competition of the IT-track GenerationS come about?
- Web Ready is not just a competition - it is an investment platform and a forum for raising funds in projects. Here you can talk with mentors, investors, understand how to build a dialogue with them correctly, and where the business angels' money ends and the seed money begins. That is, it is also an educational program for beginners.
The idea arose in 2009 thanks to the base of the Petersburg Business Incubator Ingria, which just started and was in dire need of high-quality residents. The words “start-up” or “technological project” were then little-known to anyone. We needed a bright project to help the incubator "unwind", to attract residents. At that time, Ingria specialized primarily in IT projects, and this was a key competence of our team. We had a lot of familiar experts who could help in the search and evaluation of participants in the competition. So we decided to make a competition with a specialization in IT and the Internet. In the first year, we collected 425 applications, which significantly exceeded our expectations, because we predicted no more than 200. So even then it was clear that the future was in solutions and developments related to the Internet.
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In 2012, we added a nomination for mobile technologies, which become drivers of IT development for the next few years. Technologies are changing, and our competition keeps them focused. Now we are the largest competition of start-ups in our field, not only in Russia, but also in Eastern Europe.
- How many times have competitions been held? What are the most vivid success stories?
- For 5 years, more than 2,700 projects from 150 cities and 30 countries have participated in the competition. More than 40 projects from among the contest finalists attracted investments totaling over 900 million rubles.
Among the most notable success stories is Qbaka, the winner in the Internet Web Ready-2012 nomination, who after our competition was named Best JavaScript Innovator at the Developer Week 2013 conference in San Francisco, won the selection final for the Mass Challenge 2013 program in Boston and attracted investment from Maxfield Capital Venture Fund. At the Web Ready final, the founders of the Gbooking.com project (a Russian brand - TimeBooker), Web Ready-2011 finalists, met with representatives of the Yandex company and in a few months closed the investment deal, the founders of the My Warehouse project, the Web Ready-2010 finalist, met with the experts of the company "1C" and also after some time closed the investment round.
In 2014, Web Ready is held for the 6th time. And it is important for us that this year we have become a partner of the GenerationS accelerator competition, organized by RVC and CIR of Moscow.
- What are the terms of your cooperation with GenerationS?
“As part of the Generation S acceleration program, we have become a special track for IT projects. This is a very interesting experience. We had the opportunity to organize a full-fledged acceleration program for semifinalists and to prepare well project authors for communication with investors and the jury. Before that, we conducted a series of online master classes so that project leaders would practice giving presentations on stage, focus on and correctly formulate a proposal for investors.
Web Ready in the IT-track GenerationS format will help startups to find mentors and test cooperation with the selected expert, and trackers will not let you relax and help you achieve the goals set for the summer-early autumn. We expect participants to get a good push for accelerated development.
Till June 15, applications are being received; in total, more than 700 are expected from all over Russia. The best will be the opportunity to go through the GenerationS acceleration program and present their projects on September 19 at the IT track finals and Web Ready investment forum which will bring together about 1000 leaders of the investment industry, start-ups and representatives of the IT community.
- What investors follow your competition and invest in selected startups?
- I think that investors do not just follow the competition, but write the date of the Web Ready final as a must-see in their calendars. The same is convenient: to come to the event, go around the exhibition of projects that have passed the first serious filter of the expert council. Then you can listen to the performances of projects already approved by the competent members of the jury, and as a result see the winners, having understood which projects have the greatest chances of leadership, according to the professional community. And of course, at the investment session of VC Corner there is a great opportunity to personally communicate with the project teams.
Web Ready is not the first year, and investors already know what to expect from the event. Among the guests of the finals are Lyubov Simonova-Emelyanova from Almaz Capital Partners, Elena Alekseeva from Softline, Alexander Egorov from Reksoft, Igor Ryabenky from Altair Capital Management, Alexander Turkot from Maxfield Capital Management, Pavel Cherkashin from Vestor.In, Dmitry Chikhachev from Runa Capital , Konstantin Sinyushin from the Untitled Venture Company.
- What projects would you invite to the competition if you had the opportunity? What is now in great demand?
- Of course, start-ups that develop innovative projects using Internet technologies: cloud computing, SAAS, data analysis and processing, mobile applications and solutions, recognition technologies, solutions in the field of finance and e-commerce.
We are waiting for projects of different levels of development: at the launch stage, you can apply for the Seed nomination, if the project is already monetized - for the Startup nomination, for success stories at the expansion stage - the Growth nomination. Additionally, you can apply for participation in a special nomination from EMC and in case of victory, receive a small cash prize and mentoring support from corporation experts. In 2013, 715 applications were distributed in the following directions: 18% SaaS, 16% everyday services, 14% mobile solutions & apps, 12% data storage and e-commerce solutions, 11% social networking, 7% cloud infrastructure. I would not like to predict how to distribute projects this year, but we expect that the number of mobile solutions will increase significantly.
- How did his idea for the competition of the IT-track GenerationS come about?
- Web Ready is not just a competition - it is an investment platform and a forum for raising funds in projects. Here you can talk with mentors, investors, understand how to build a dialogue with them correctly, and where the business angels' money ends and the seed money begins. That is, it is also an educational program for beginners.
The idea arose in 2009 thanks to the base of the Petersburg Business Incubator Ingria, which just started and was in dire need of high-quality residents. The words “start-up” or “technological project” were then little-known to anyone. We needed a bright project to help the incubator "unwind", to attract residents. At that time, Ingria specialized primarily in IT projects, and this was a key competence of our team. We had a lot of familiar experts who could help in the search and evaluation of participants in the competition. So we decided to make a competition with a specialization in IT and the Internet. In the first year, we collected 425 applications, which significantly exceeded our expectations, because we predicted no more than 200. So even then it was clear that the future was in solutions and developments related to the Internet.
')
In 2012, we added a nomination for mobile technologies, which become drivers of IT development for the next few years. Technologies are changing, and our competition keeps them focused. Now we are the largest competition of start-ups in our field, not only in Russia, but also in Eastern Europe.
- How many times have competitions been held? What are the most vivid success stories?
- For 5 years, more than 2,700 projects from 150 cities and 30 countries have participated in the competition. More than 40 projects from among the contest finalists attracted investments totaling over 900 million rubles.
Among the most notable success stories is Qbaka, the winner in the Internet Web Ready-2012 nomination, who after our competition was named Best JavaScript Innovator at the Developer Week 2013 conference in San Francisco, won the selection final for the Mass Challenge 2013 program in Boston and attracted investment from Maxfield Capital Venture Fund. At the Web Ready final, the founders of the Gbooking.com project (a Russian brand - TimeBooker), Web Ready-2011 finalists, met with representatives of the Yandex company and in a few months closed the investment deal, the founders of the My Warehouse project, the Web Ready-2010 finalist, met with the experts of the company "1C" and also after some time closed the investment round.
In 2014, Web Ready is held for the 6th time. And it is important for us that this year we have become a partner of the GenerationS accelerator competition, organized by RVC and CIR of Moscow.
- What are the terms of your cooperation with GenerationS?
“As part of the Generation S acceleration program, we have become a special track for IT projects. This is a very interesting experience. We had the opportunity to organize a full-fledged acceleration program for semifinalists and to prepare well project authors for communication with investors and the jury. Before that, we conducted a series of online master classes so that project leaders would practice giving presentations on stage, focus on and correctly formulate a proposal for investors.
Web Ready in the IT-track GenerationS format will help startups to find mentors and test cooperation with the selected expert, and trackers will not let you relax and help you achieve the goals set for the summer-early autumn. We expect participants to get a good push for accelerated development.
Till June 15, applications are being received; in total, more than 700 are expected from all over Russia. The best will be the opportunity to go through the GenerationS acceleration program and present their projects on September 19 at the IT track finals and Web Ready investment forum which will bring together about 1000 leaders of the investment industry, start-ups and representatives of the IT community.
- What investors follow your competition and invest in selected startups?
- I think that investors do not just follow the competition, but write the date of the Web Ready final as a must-see in their calendars. The same is convenient: to come to the event, go around the exhibition of projects that have passed the first serious filter of the expert council. Then you can listen to the performances of projects already approved by the competent members of the jury, and as a result see the winners, having understood which projects have the greatest chances of leadership, according to the professional community. And of course, at the investment session of VC Corner there is a great opportunity to personally communicate with the project teams.
Web Ready is not the first year, and investors already know what to expect from the event. Among the guests of the finals are Lyubov Simonova-Emelyanova from Almaz Capital Partners, Elena Alekseeva from Softline, Alexander Egorov from Reksoft, Igor Ryabenky from Altair Capital Management, Alexander Turkot from Maxfield Capital Management, Pavel Cherkashin from Vestor.In, Dmitry Chikhachev from Runa Capital , Konstantin Sinyushin from the Untitled Venture Company.
- What projects would you invite to the competition if you had the opportunity? What is now in great demand?
- Of course, start-ups that develop innovative projects using Internet technologies: cloud computing, SAAS, data analysis and processing, mobile applications and solutions, recognition technologies, solutions in the field of finance and e-commerce.
We are waiting for projects of different levels of development: at the launch stage, you can apply for the Seed nomination, if the project is already monetized - for the Startup nomination, for success stories at the expansion stage - the Growth nomination. Additionally, you can apply for participation in a special nomination from EMC and in case of victory, receive a small cash prize and mentoring support from corporation experts. In 2013, 715 applications were distributed in the following directions: 18% SaaS, 16% everyday services, 14% mobile solutions & apps, 12% data storage and e-commerce solutions, 11% social networking, 7% cloud infrastructure. I would not like to predict how to distribute projects this year, but we expect that the number of mobile solutions will increase significantly.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/226041/
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