Who do corporations want?
The interest of large companies to startups, which appeared relatively recently, continues to grow. Almost every week there are news that N is opening a venture capital fund / launching an acceleration program / looking for startups ... Why do they do it? What startups want to find? What are the requirements for them? And what are they willing to offer in return?
On April 15, at the RIF + CIB forum, GoTech Fund gathered representatives of Russian and international corporations from various industries to ask all these questions. The discussion led by Evgenia Barchenko (GoTech) and Dmitry Falaleev (Firrma.ru) turned out to be hot, and the answers were very different. The most interesting we have collected in this article.
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Rostelecom
Alexey Kupriyanov , General Director of Commite Capital, corporate venture fund Rostelecom: “We are ready to invest if an external startup is able to offer a more effective solution to our problems than the one we found on our own.”
About innovations: Rostelecom operates in a very dynamic industry, so the company simply must be innovative. For the search and implementation of innovations, work is carried out in several key areas: 1) M & A transactions 2) domestic R & D and investments in research and development 3) domestic venture projects 4) corporate venture capital fund - Comit Capital. Alexey heads the last direction, which began to work actively about a year ago.
About the fund: ComitIT Capital manages 1.5 billion rubles, a month ago the first two deals were closed.
What projects are interesting? The fund has 2 priority areas for finding startups: projects that can modernize the existing infrastructure of Rostelecom, and companies developing final products that Rostelecom can offer to its customers in the B2C area (40 million users), B2B (700 thousand companies) and B2G. Can be considered as investments at the seed stage, and in projects at a later stage.
What projects are NOT interesting? Immediately swept aside local stories with a small market.
What do startups offer? In addition to money, Rostelecom is ready to offer projects its resources for pilot implementation and testing of innovations. In fact, from the moment a transaction is completed, the work of a corporate fund only begins, since it is the entrance window to the company's huge internal environment. At this stage, an important task is to find an “internal customer” of innovation.
Where do you get projects? The main way to find projects for investment is “market research”, participation in events. It is thanks to the "manual search" that the company expects to find "uncut diamonds."
Rambler
Rafael Abrahamyan , Executive Director of Rambler & Co: “Just as investors choose startups, startups must choose investors.”
How is preparing for a meeting with a strategic investor? Coming into an operating company, a startup must very clearly understand its synergy with this company. You should tell not about what a cool project you have, but how this project can help the day-to-day business of the corporation. ”
It is equally important to understand what you want from an investor. The corporate fund is a story not only about money. Just as investors choose startups, startups should choose investors if they are not thinking about selling the business entirely, but about attracting investments. If a startup does not understand what stage it is at and cannot answer the question about what it needs from the corporation, then you can end the conversation.
About the “Rambler” deals: the biggest deal that Rambler & Co had was the purchase of 50% of UCS and the operating portfolio (owned by R-keeper, UCS-Premiere). The company will soon launch a service with which you can come to a restaurant, look at the menu, place an order and pay for it through a mobile application.
For Rambler, venture investment is a complex scenario of interaction with a startup, because after the transaction is completed, it is not easy to keep the founding team. As part of the integration strategy, control over the company is required. At this stage, not all founders are able to play by corporate rules.
"Kaspersky Lab"
Alexey Chikov , head of innovation projects at Kaspersky Lab: “When making a decision on investment, the interests of the internal customer are taken into account. Inner advocacy is always good. On the other hand, we are looking for new solutions that can help us scale to the whole world. ”
On interest in start-ups: in recent months, Kaspersky Lab has begun to look closely at the start-up market and sees an increase in its presence in this market as one of its objectives. The company became one of the first partners of the GoTech contest, announcing the collection of projects in the field of Next Generation Security, ready to work in the international market.
What do startups offer? In the field of security, an extremely complex go-to-market, since requires a very high level of trust from the client. The Kaspersky Lab brand for partner projects can be an excellent “entry ticket” to customers.
In addition to money, the company is ready to offer start-ups access to global expertise in the field of information security, access to technology and development support in the international market.
On the stage of projects: we are ready to consider projects at the earliest stage, if they understand the prospect of further cooperation.
About errors: it is important that the project team can clearly articulate what problem they solve, who the consumer is and what the value proposition is. The worst thing you can do is to talk about import substitution and speculate with patriotism, talking about your competitive advantages. We are interested in stories that we will help to scale the whole world.
Burdainternetional
Elena Fironova , investment manager Hubert Burda Media: “We are not looking for those startups that will make us successful, but those who we can make successful.”
About the tasks of media companies: following the global trend, Burda has set itself the task of transferring offline publications online and reducing dependence on advertising revenue.
What projects are interesting? Burda is looking for projects with consumer-friendly, scalable business models (B2C, B2B2C). Interesting media projects, marketplaces and transactional businesses.
About deals: invest at a later stage. If they see that the company is developing dynamically after that, then they are ready to buy. Recently, together with the Acel Partners Foundation, we have invested 20 million euros in the marketplace for the exchange of vintage clothing Vinted.com. At the time of investment, the company had a clearly segmented audience, 11 million users, obvious monetization, more than 5 markets, a formed team and a very large traction.
The average share in the project is 15-20%.
Where do you get projects? Burda is looking for projects on its own or through participation in contests. The purpose of participation is to declare oneself as a corporate strategist for specialized companies. Strategic partnerships are ready to start with projects at the seed stage.
What do startups offer? They act as a financial investor, practice the Media4Equity model - acquiring a stake in a company in exchange for advertising on their sites, providing content support.
Advice to entrepreneurs: if you start a project in Russia, first achieve an operating break-even and a stable position in your home market, then go abroad. When communicating with an investor, objectively assess the value of the company. It is not always necessary to focus on the cost of Western analogues, you need to take into account the characteristics of your market.
How to estimate the value of the company? We take the cost of a similar company in the US market and divide by 10, we get the value of the company in the Russian market.
AFK Sistema
Anna Yanchevskaya , Sistema Venture Capital fund communications director: “1We expect that a startup (taking into account the application of all our resources and capabilities) will be self-sustaining in 12 months. If at the start it becomes clear that the business model does not take off, or all of our capacities will not help the startup to become profitable, then this is not our story. ”
About the fund: the youngest corporate fund. The team works autonomously, assembles its own portfolio of projects and does not scout technology for other divisions of Sistema, which is the main but not the only investor of the fund.
What projects are interesting? The fund will invest in financial and advertising technologies, projects in the field of the Internet of Things (for them there is a strong partner for scaling up - Micron GC - the largest manufacturer and exporter of microelectronics). Another interesting area - communitaiment - online games and everything connected with them.
Selection criteria: a business-oriented team, an understandable model of monetization, the possibility, with the help of Sistema’s resources, to become self-sufficient in 12 months. The fund is considering already mature projects, it is important that there be revenue and a financial plan, as well as an understanding of how the foundation can help the project.
What do startups offer? Capacity for rapid scaling: access to technology, to the infrastructure of the urban environment, production capacity, support in entering the international market. Not ready to engage in mentoring and training projects, ready to cooperate with already formed strong business teams.
Where do you get projects? The most valuable funnel for a strategic investor comes from venture funds, such startups have already passed the selection and examination, someone has already believed them. The foundation also collects and considers the incoming funnel, but the basic principle is: “we’ll call the interesting projects ourselves”.
Advice to entrepreneurs: all funds communicate with each other and recommend projects to each other. Don't underestimate networking in the community.
"Alfa Bank"
Sergey Maksimchuk, Alfa-Start project manager: “Get confirmation that the problem you are solving exists. Check on real users. ”
About the Laboratory: Alpha-Laboratory is a bank division with a flexible structure and mechanism of operation. Appeared 3 years ago. The experiment was recognized as successful, and now the remaining divisions are being transformed in order to react in time to market changes, introduce new technologies and not to miss the opening opportunities.
What projects are interesting? Non-financial services that may be required by bank customers - insurance, consumer projects. For example, one of the graduates of Alfa Camp made "Uber for dry cleaners" - the bank's customers were satisfied with the pilot. The next step is scaling.
Another pilot project is software for Wi-Fi equipment, which recognizes that the client has entered the bank zone and sends push notifications to it.
Where do you get projects? To begin with, they organized the Alfa Camp acceleration program, collected 300 applications, mainly the idea stages. According to the results of the accelerator, 15 interesting solutions were selected, but due to the early stage of the projects, the pilots could not be started: somewhere, the teams collapsed, but somewhere they realized that the costs of integration would be higher than the expected income from implementation.
The following year, they raised the stage of the participating projects, which brought results in the form of 5 pilots with startups, who so far act as contractors for Alfa-Bank.
The third Alfa Camp this year will be held with the support of infrastructure partners to collect target projects funnel.
What difficulties do you face? The complexity of the "internal sale" of a startup employee of the corporation who could use the solution. On the one hand, he needs technology, but on the other hand, a large number of operational tasks do not allow him to dive into work with startups. To demonstrate the value of cooperation with external projects and motivate an internal customer, Alfa-Bank organizes an internal Road Show for decision makers.
Advice to entrepreneurs: get confirmation that the problem you are solving exists. Check on real users.
the Untitled VC - seed pool
Konstantin Sinyushin , co-founder of the Untitled Venture Company: “The main mission of the seed fund is to understand the trends of the corporate market and correctly transmit them to the startup audience.”
On the venture investment market: until recently, PR was the main driving force in the venture capital market: companies, funds and development institutions launched start-up support programs, primarily to maintain their “innovative” image. But the economic crisis that had occurred had a cleansing effect on the market and made it possible to launch the conveyor belt of the venture capital ecosystem, which should bring the funds to real outputs.
About building relationships between seed funds and corporate strategists: the market is a funnel, at the very top of which are startups, below are corporate strategies, and in the middle are seed funds of different stages. The main mission of the fund is to understand the trends of the corporate market and correctly transmit them to the startup audience. And back to return them in the form of a short list of solutions prepared for a corporate customer.
What projects are interesting? It’s hard for a private foundation to strategically help just good projects. Therefore, the Untitled VC focused on collecting clusters, and took the path of thematic events. For example, together with the GoTech competition, the fund selects projects that benefit the consumer goods market. In this case, the Untitled VC plans to work not only with the winners of the competition, but also with the entire funnel of projects, even at an early stage. Having passed the selection in the GoToRetail nomination, participants can count on industry expertise, access to pilot projects of large retailers, seed investments from the fund and help in finding investors for the next round.
Advice to entrepreneurs: do not rush to do a startup. You need to have very deep industry expertise and networking in what you are doing. Work, discuss your ideas. You will understand that a startup will crystallize by itself, and be surprised how much interest it will arouse among investors. Do not forget that many people have money, and only you have a product. It must be carefully prepared.
How to overcome the barrier to entering the corporation? Before you sell something to large corporations, you need to grow. To this end, there are support institutions on the market: seed funds, accelerators, incubators, business angels. To jump over the pit, you need to pick up speed. Never more will not buy from the little ones.
AddReality - Intel nomination winner for Web Ready 2014
Sergey Galeev , CEO AddReality: "Understand the KPI of the corporate partner, show how you build in these KPIs and can affect their improvement."
About the company: AddReality product is a platform for effective communication with customers at points of sale. The company is 5 years old. A year ago, sales began, before this was the development.
On attracting corporations as partners: for the sale of the product, AddReality is developing an affiliate network that today has more than 100 companies in the Russian Federation: integrators, consulting and advertising agencies. A separate task is integration with corporate vendors in order to increase the level of trust of end customers and significantly shorten the product sales cycle. After winning Web Ready, AddReality began working with Intel and launched a joint go-to-market project.
Advice to entrepreneurs: understand the KPI of your potential corporate partner, show how you are built into these KPIs and can affect their improvement. If you can prove it, then the sales partner of the corporate partner will start selling your solution.
With such cooperation, the corporate partner provides access to customers and confirms the quality of the product with its name, and the project is responsible for technological expertise and presale.
On April 15, at the RIF + CIB forum, GoTech Fund gathered representatives of Russian and international corporations from various industries to ask all these questions. The discussion led by Evgenia Barchenko (GoTech) and Dmitry Falaleev (Firrma.ru) turned out to be hot, and the answers were very different. The most interesting we have collected in this article.
')
Rostelecom
Alexey Kupriyanov , General Director of Commite Capital, corporate venture fund Rostelecom: “We are ready to invest if an external startup is able to offer a more effective solution to our problems than the one we found on our own.”
About innovations: Rostelecom operates in a very dynamic industry, so the company simply must be innovative. For the search and implementation of innovations, work is carried out in several key areas: 1) M & A transactions 2) domestic R & D and investments in research and development 3) domestic venture projects 4) corporate venture capital fund - Comit Capital. Alexey heads the last direction, which began to work actively about a year ago.
About the fund: ComitIT Capital manages 1.5 billion rubles, a month ago the first two deals were closed.
What projects are interesting? The fund has 2 priority areas for finding startups: projects that can modernize the existing infrastructure of Rostelecom, and companies developing final products that Rostelecom can offer to its customers in the B2C area (40 million users), B2B (700 thousand companies) and B2G. Can be considered as investments at the seed stage, and in projects at a later stage.
What projects are NOT interesting? Immediately swept aside local stories with a small market.
What do startups offer? In addition to money, Rostelecom is ready to offer projects its resources for pilot implementation and testing of innovations. In fact, from the moment a transaction is completed, the work of a corporate fund only begins, since it is the entrance window to the company's huge internal environment. At this stage, an important task is to find an “internal customer” of innovation.
Where do you get projects? The main way to find projects for investment is “market research”, participation in events. It is thanks to the "manual search" that the company expects to find "uncut diamonds."
Rambler
Rafael Abrahamyan , Executive Director of Rambler & Co: “Just as investors choose startups, startups must choose investors.”
How is preparing for a meeting with a strategic investor? Coming into an operating company, a startup must very clearly understand its synergy with this company. You should tell not about what a cool project you have, but how this project can help the day-to-day business of the corporation. ”
It is equally important to understand what you want from an investor. The corporate fund is a story not only about money. Just as investors choose startups, startups should choose investors if they are not thinking about selling the business entirely, but about attracting investments. If a startup does not understand what stage it is at and cannot answer the question about what it needs from the corporation, then you can end the conversation.
About the “Rambler” deals: the biggest deal that Rambler & Co had was the purchase of 50% of UCS and the operating portfolio (owned by R-keeper, UCS-Premiere). The company will soon launch a service with which you can come to a restaurant, look at the menu, place an order and pay for it through a mobile application.
For Rambler, venture investment is a complex scenario of interaction with a startup, because after the transaction is completed, it is not easy to keep the founding team. As part of the integration strategy, control over the company is required. At this stage, not all founders are able to play by corporate rules.
"Kaspersky Lab"
Alexey Chikov , head of innovation projects at Kaspersky Lab: “When making a decision on investment, the interests of the internal customer are taken into account. Inner advocacy is always good. On the other hand, we are looking for new solutions that can help us scale to the whole world. ”
On interest in start-ups: in recent months, Kaspersky Lab has begun to look closely at the start-up market and sees an increase in its presence in this market as one of its objectives. The company became one of the first partners of the GoTech contest, announcing the collection of projects in the field of Next Generation Security, ready to work in the international market.
What do startups offer? In the field of security, an extremely complex go-to-market, since requires a very high level of trust from the client. The Kaspersky Lab brand for partner projects can be an excellent “entry ticket” to customers.
In addition to money, the company is ready to offer start-ups access to global expertise in the field of information security, access to technology and development support in the international market.
On the stage of projects: we are ready to consider projects at the earliest stage, if they understand the prospect of further cooperation.
About errors: it is important that the project team can clearly articulate what problem they solve, who the consumer is and what the value proposition is. The worst thing you can do is to talk about import substitution and speculate with patriotism, talking about your competitive advantages. We are interested in stories that we will help to scale the whole world.
Burdainternetional
Elena Fironova , investment manager Hubert Burda Media: “We are not looking for those startups that will make us successful, but those who we can make successful.”
About the tasks of media companies: following the global trend, Burda has set itself the task of transferring offline publications online and reducing dependence on advertising revenue.
What projects are interesting? Burda is looking for projects with consumer-friendly, scalable business models (B2C, B2B2C). Interesting media projects, marketplaces and transactional businesses.
About deals: invest at a later stage. If they see that the company is developing dynamically after that, then they are ready to buy. Recently, together with the Acel Partners Foundation, we have invested 20 million euros in the marketplace for the exchange of vintage clothing Vinted.com. At the time of investment, the company had a clearly segmented audience, 11 million users, obvious monetization, more than 5 markets, a formed team and a very large traction.
The average share in the project is 15-20%.
Where do you get projects? Burda is looking for projects on its own or through participation in contests. The purpose of participation is to declare oneself as a corporate strategist for specialized companies. Strategic partnerships are ready to start with projects at the seed stage.
What do startups offer? They act as a financial investor, practice the Media4Equity model - acquiring a stake in a company in exchange for advertising on their sites, providing content support.
Advice to entrepreneurs: if you start a project in Russia, first achieve an operating break-even and a stable position in your home market, then go abroad. When communicating with an investor, objectively assess the value of the company. It is not always necessary to focus on the cost of Western analogues, you need to take into account the characteristics of your market.
How to estimate the value of the company? We take the cost of a similar company in the US market and divide by 10, we get the value of the company in the Russian market.
AFK Sistema
Anna Yanchevskaya , Sistema Venture Capital fund communications director: “1We expect that a startup (taking into account the application of all our resources and capabilities) will be self-sustaining in 12 months. If at the start it becomes clear that the business model does not take off, or all of our capacities will not help the startup to become profitable, then this is not our story. ”
About the fund: the youngest corporate fund. The team works autonomously, assembles its own portfolio of projects and does not scout technology for other divisions of Sistema, which is the main but not the only investor of the fund.
What projects are interesting? The fund will invest in financial and advertising technologies, projects in the field of the Internet of Things (for them there is a strong partner for scaling up - Micron GC - the largest manufacturer and exporter of microelectronics). Another interesting area - communitaiment - online games and everything connected with them.
Selection criteria: a business-oriented team, an understandable model of monetization, the possibility, with the help of Sistema’s resources, to become self-sufficient in 12 months. The fund is considering already mature projects, it is important that there be revenue and a financial plan, as well as an understanding of how the foundation can help the project.
What do startups offer? Capacity for rapid scaling: access to technology, to the infrastructure of the urban environment, production capacity, support in entering the international market. Not ready to engage in mentoring and training projects, ready to cooperate with already formed strong business teams.
Where do you get projects? The most valuable funnel for a strategic investor comes from venture funds, such startups have already passed the selection and examination, someone has already believed them. The foundation also collects and considers the incoming funnel, but the basic principle is: “we’ll call the interesting projects ourselves”.
Advice to entrepreneurs: all funds communicate with each other and recommend projects to each other. Don't underestimate networking in the community.
"Alfa Bank"
Sergey Maksimchuk, Alfa-Start project manager: “Get confirmation that the problem you are solving exists. Check on real users. ”
About the Laboratory: Alpha-Laboratory is a bank division with a flexible structure and mechanism of operation. Appeared 3 years ago. The experiment was recognized as successful, and now the remaining divisions are being transformed in order to react in time to market changes, introduce new technologies and not to miss the opening opportunities.
What projects are interesting? Non-financial services that may be required by bank customers - insurance, consumer projects. For example, one of the graduates of Alfa Camp made "Uber for dry cleaners" - the bank's customers were satisfied with the pilot. The next step is scaling.
Another pilot project is software for Wi-Fi equipment, which recognizes that the client has entered the bank zone and sends push notifications to it.
Where do you get projects? To begin with, they organized the Alfa Camp acceleration program, collected 300 applications, mainly the idea stages. According to the results of the accelerator, 15 interesting solutions were selected, but due to the early stage of the projects, the pilots could not be started: somewhere, the teams collapsed, but somewhere they realized that the costs of integration would be higher than the expected income from implementation.
The following year, they raised the stage of the participating projects, which brought results in the form of 5 pilots with startups, who so far act as contractors for Alfa-Bank.
The third Alfa Camp this year will be held with the support of infrastructure partners to collect target projects funnel.
What difficulties do you face? The complexity of the "internal sale" of a startup employee of the corporation who could use the solution. On the one hand, he needs technology, but on the other hand, a large number of operational tasks do not allow him to dive into work with startups. To demonstrate the value of cooperation with external projects and motivate an internal customer, Alfa-Bank organizes an internal Road Show for decision makers.
Advice to entrepreneurs: get confirmation that the problem you are solving exists. Check on real users.
the Untitled VC - seed pool
Konstantin Sinyushin , co-founder of the Untitled Venture Company: “The main mission of the seed fund is to understand the trends of the corporate market and correctly transmit them to the startup audience.”
On the venture investment market: until recently, PR was the main driving force in the venture capital market: companies, funds and development institutions launched start-up support programs, primarily to maintain their “innovative” image. But the economic crisis that had occurred had a cleansing effect on the market and made it possible to launch the conveyor belt of the venture capital ecosystem, which should bring the funds to real outputs.
About building relationships between seed funds and corporate strategists: the market is a funnel, at the very top of which are startups, below are corporate strategies, and in the middle are seed funds of different stages. The main mission of the fund is to understand the trends of the corporate market and correctly transmit them to the startup audience. And back to return them in the form of a short list of solutions prepared for a corporate customer.
What projects are interesting? It’s hard for a private foundation to strategically help just good projects. Therefore, the Untitled VC focused on collecting clusters, and took the path of thematic events. For example, together with the GoTech competition, the fund selects projects that benefit the consumer goods market. In this case, the Untitled VC plans to work not only with the winners of the competition, but also with the entire funnel of projects, even at an early stage. Having passed the selection in the GoToRetail nomination, participants can count on industry expertise, access to pilot projects of large retailers, seed investments from the fund and help in finding investors for the next round.
Advice to entrepreneurs: do not rush to do a startup. You need to have very deep industry expertise and networking in what you are doing. Work, discuss your ideas. You will understand that a startup will crystallize by itself, and be surprised how much interest it will arouse among investors. Do not forget that many people have money, and only you have a product. It must be carefully prepared.
How to overcome the barrier to entering the corporation? Before you sell something to large corporations, you need to grow. To this end, there are support institutions on the market: seed funds, accelerators, incubators, business angels. To jump over the pit, you need to pick up speed. Never more will not buy from the little ones.
AddReality - Intel nomination winner for Web Ready 2014
Sergey Galeev , CEO AddReality: "Understand the KPI of the corporate partner, show how you build in these KPIs and can affect their improvement."
About the company: AddReality product is a platform for effective communication with customers at points of sale. The company is 5 years old. A year ago, sales began, before this was the development.
On attracting corporations as partners: for the sale of the product, AddReality is developing an affiliate network that today has more than 100 companies in the Russian Federation: integrators, consulting and advertising agencies. A separate task is integration with corporate vendors in order to increase the level of trust of end customers and significantly shorten the product sales cycle. After winning Web Ready, AddReality began working with Intel and launched a joint go-to-market project.
Advice to entrepreneurs: understand the KPI of your potential corporate partner, show how you are built into these KPIs and can affect their improvement. If you can prove it, then the sales partner of the corporate partner will start selling your solution.
With such cooperation, the corporate partner provides access to customers and confirms the quality of the product with its name, and the project is responsible for technological expertise and presale.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/300854/
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