Startups and Microsoft: Venture, Hubs, and That's All

February 14, 2018, while lovers and programmers enjoyed the holiday, BizSpark (Microsoft's international startup program) ceased to exist. She was gorgeous. We were sad ... But not for long. On the same day we announced a new program Microsoft For Startups. I asked Nastya, who deals with us in this area, to tell a little about the work of Microsoft with startups in the past and the future.



I give the floor to Anastasia Makeyonok, head of innovative entrepreneurship at Microsoft Russia and CIS.

BizSpark: a bit of history

Our old startup program, BizSpark , was excellent: we supported young companies by donating resources to develop their solutions first for three years, and after restarting the program for one year.
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In addition, there was an extended program to support more mature startups, the next level, the so-called BizSpark Plus . As part of it, you could get: a large cloud grant up to $ 120K in the Microsoft Azure cloud, technical support and technical expertise, and a business development manager worked with the guys.

When a startup approached the top bar of using free resources within the grant, the next step of the program, Microsoft Go To Market Accelerator, entered into the picture. Within it, we provided the project with marketing and sales support, helping to enter new markets and make money.

Such start-ups as Dodo Pizza , FaceApp , Robot Vera , HoloGroup , Heedbook , Netology , Meduza.io , LinguaLeo , Dnevnik.ru , The Question and many others took part in this program.

Microsoft For Startups: New Era

So, we are glad to present you our new program - Microsoft For Startups . It is no less attractive than the old one, and in some ways it even wins greatly against its background. The key difference is that now we are trying not only to provide the young company with resources, but to truly grow it, helping with sales, “accelerating” technically not only when moving to the cloud, but also at each stage of the project’s development.

Let's look a little more clearly. In the table below, I will list the main modified items within Microsoft startup programs.

What changed?	Was (BizSpark)	It became (Microsoft For Startups)
An approach	Work with a wide channel, technical upskilling STO	Work 1-1, help not only on technical issues, but also on business issues, Microsoft’s focus on partnership with a startup
Target focus	Early stage	B2B, later stage (seed +), potential for inclusion in other Microsoft programs
suggestions	Azure credits, Office 365 Business Premium, Visual Studio Enterprise, technical support	Azure credits, Office 365 Business Premium, technical support for Enterprise, Visual Studio Enterprise Cloud, Dynamics 365, as well as the possibility of joint sales and technical acceleration
The brand	BizSpark, BizSpark +	Microsoft for Startups
Offer for a wide channel	BizSpark	Azure free offer for startups, Microsoft Partner Network, Go-To-Market support in the early stages and the possibility of receiving co-marketing

What does all this mean?

• We have not stopped helping startups. We began to do it more cleverly and focally, within the framework of the Microsoft Scale Up program, individualizing our offer for every B2B startup, selecting the necessary technologies for growth, helping to reach the right customers and customers, establishing partnerships with it, if necessary - not only in our market, but also in other countries. The size of the cloud grant has changed, it has become more flexible: with those startups that fall into the program, we start with a grant of $ 25K inside the Microsoft Azure cloud, issued for a year. This distribution helps to more intelligently use the resources allocated for your project. Also, new resources appear in the offer (for example, access to Dynamics 365).
• In some cities of the world, we have opened Microsoft Reactors - these are special startup hubs created on the basis of Microsoft Accelerators, where you can communicate with various technology experts, attend subject meetings, and also conduct your own. Microsoft Reactors are now open in Seattle, Beijing, Shanghai, Bangalore, Tel Aviv, Berlin and London. Soon we are planning to open another such startup hub.
• And finally, Microsoft Ventures , our corporate venture fund, continues to invest in interesting solutions around the world. Colleagues from Ventures consider even more mature businesses, ranging from stage A to stage C. An important criterion for investment by our corporate venture capital fund is the availability of interesting technology inside a startup. A list of such technology trends can be found on the Microsoft Ventures website.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments!