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

Summer is the best time to gather 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 what the most interesting contests and what can be expected from them.

Consider the three largest and different in format of events.

Startup village

Startup village is a grand outdoor festival held by the Skolkovo Foundation. This year it will be held on June 2-3 in the territory of Skolkovo.
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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 representatives of the government. Such events are attended by the first persons of the state, last year was Dmitry Medvedev with a large delegation, the total number of participants exceeded 12,000 people from 19 countries of the world.


Dmitry Medvedev is testing a gadget of one of the startups at Startup village 2015

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

Despite the fact that Startup tour is already over, anyone can take part in the startup competition by submitting an application on the Startup village website. This is the only one of the considered contests 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, get feedback from recognized experts in your field, demonstrate the project to thousands of participants.



There are 27 nominations in 5 directions in the competition:

• strategic computer technology and software;
• innovative biomedical technologies;
• biotechnology in agriculture and industry;
• energy efficiency and energy saving, including the development of innovative energy technologies;
• nuclear technologies: new industrial technologies;
• space technology.

The questions to be answered by a startup during the presentation are traditional:

• what problem does the project solve
• Is there a demand for a solution to this problem?
• market volume and competitors
• proposed solution to the problem and its advantages
• why you are able to achieve success with your product
• what do you need for the project

Everything is as short as possible, the performances are held in the pitch format (4 minutes), the task of which is to attract attention and begin to shape the investor's interest. The presentation should be in English, 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 website https://startupvillage.ru
Registration until May 22, 2016

GenerationS.

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



Last year, the process was built as follows:

• twice a week, participants watched video lectures recorded specifically for the competition by leading experts
• after each lecture it was necessary to answer the test and complete the homework, the essence of which was to refine the project using the knowledge and techniques obtained at the lecture (problem formulation, market analysis, business model, competition, etc.).
• 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 were passed to the semifinals, where they were interviewed by experts on Skype.
• projects that successfully passed the semifinal fell into corporate accelerators.
• Corporate accelerators already had face-to-face classes with a representative of the largest companies who selected projects that were in line with their strategic directions of development, and could be implemented in production or in business processes.

2566 projects were submitted to the competition, 1757 projects were transferred to the pre-accelerator, 1191 passed the program to the end (data from the report of RVC representatives at the congress of the Association of Business Incubators). More than 500 experts, including your humble servant, as well as more than 200 investors and corporate partners were involved in project evaluation.



All finalists selected for corporate accelerators received 2 million rubles each for the development of their projects from the Small Business Development Fund under the “START” program.
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 competition partners, for example, my colleague received iPad Air from SAP and a consulting certificate from this company for integrating its product with the SAP platform.



GenerationS is an event where every startup should take part. I, as an expert of the competition, talked a lot with the projects, each of them, even if it did not reach the semifinals, received a very large profit. These are new contacts, feedback from dozens of experts, a deeper understanding of their project, they learned how to structure and beautifully present their project.
This year, the GenS deadlines have shifted slightly. The grand opening of GenerationS -2016 is due to take place on June 21, 2016, from June to September the collection of applications.

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

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

FRIA

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.

FRIA prepared two events in the summer:

1. Industry acceleration. The selection of projects is carried out in the field of “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 assist in business development, entering new markets and access to strategic customers.
Prerequisite is the availability of the prototype and the first sale.
Applications are accepted until June 23, 2016.
Event website: www.iidf.ru/startups/accelerator/iot

2. 10th set in the IIDF accelerator.

• 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.).

The requirements that FRIA exhibits for projects that want to get into the accelerator:

• availability of a base product (MVP) that can be sold to customers
• Achievable turnover of the company should be at least 300 million rubles a year in 3-5 years, i.e. product must be mass-market oriented
• At least 2 key project participants should be ready to work full time at the accelerator site in Moscow

Despite such requirements, more than 500 applications are submitted to the IIDF, of which the fund selects the 30 best projects.



What gives the fund:
• an individual tracker (expert) who, together with the team, will develop an individual growth plan and help keep the focus on results
• intensive three-month program for the development of the company
• educational program and individual expert advice on various aspects of your business
• investments in the amount 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/