On June 13, 2013 the Russian phase of Seed Forum took place in Hypercube. 12 startups including several foreign teams presented pitches in front of business angels, after that a session discussing problems of investing at startup stage was conducted.
This is already the third event in Russia (and second at the Skolkovo Hypercube) conducted by the Seed Forum, one of the largest world associations of investment and venture companies, startups, technoparks and business innovation centers. This time Skolkovo Foundation, presented by its Investment Service, was the general partner of the event, while the Foundation’s resident startups formed the absolute majority, being represented by 10 out of 12 teams.
Steinar Korsmo, founder of Seed Forum, spoke
Before the beginning of the event at Hypercube Steinar Korsmo, founder and president of Seed Forum, gave a short interview in which he said that the situation with the startup movement in Russia on the whole and Skolkovo in particular is rapidly changing for the better before his eyes.
Since the first big Seed Forum which he conducted in Moscow in the frameworks of the Russian Youth Innovation Forum, Russian teams have gained considerable strength: their professional level has grown. At the same time one can notice that their number is increasing as well.
“The number of companies from Skolkovo ecosystem which we consult in the frameworks of our events – and we conduct them twice per year – is growing. Skolkovo becomes one of the world venues keeping pace with Seed Forum events. This is already the second event in Hypercube, and we are pleased that cooperation is developing according to previously designed plans. If this positive trend carries on, we will see a big number of Skolkovo startups at our events. I hope that based on the results of pitches, contacts with investors will be established today that will at the end of the day result in deals. I also hope that the conference will show that startups have the wish and good ambitions to further develop their project to a higher business level, because it is this approach that will allow them to generate stable progressive growth”, said Steinar Korsmo, CEO Seed Forum.
During a plenary session for Seed Forum startups, chairman of the Europe-wide known “Entrepreneurship House” in Oslo, Odd Moe, also called for working continuously with a prospect of creating big business, as did a Latvian guest Gints Vins, head of the Seed Forum in Central and Eastern Europe. The event in Hypercube was opened by Eduard Kanalosh, investment director of the Foundation. Among the speakers were Alexander Loktionov, chairman of Seed Forum Russia; Sergey Teplov, head of the Strogino Technopark; Vitaliy Polekhin, head of the investor club of the Moscow School of Management.
Eduard Kanalosh and Alexander Loktionov summed up Seed Forum:
Power Pitches
This time companies had to make presentations in a quite unusual format: in the beginning they introduced themselves in a 30 seconds long power pitch, then came out once again in the “classic” pitch format, and then again in front of the entire audience giving short answers to questions, why investors should invest in them. Among the other Foundation resident companies the following came out with pitches at Seed Forum: Correlate, BBU Pharmaceuticals, Pharma Bio, Vision Labs, Photonica Tuning, Lemph, Inngeo, AT Energy, Risk Avers Capital Stewardship (RACS), Integrit, Lab-n-Fab, Toytemic Inventions, Travelmetrics.
Trend for crowdfunding
At the round table which started immediately after the pitch sessions, Korsmo and his colleagues from Scandinavia marked a trend on crowdfunding development in Europe, preference to invest small amounts into startups. Initial capital at the beginning phase is more and more often formed based on a circle of people who due to certain reasons are not indifferent to your business. Among somewhat curious but at the same time very instructive examples voiced at Seed Forum is a story about how “Entrepreneurship House” in Oslo raised half a million dollars among people who come to the coffee machine standing in this house; or how consultants who voluntarily agree to help you (free of charge but for a place in advisory board) come to the conclusion that without investments their help is not enough and invest into the project becoming your investors. And also about how to become a business angel for those who not long ago were looking for an investor but understood that investing (even in small amounts) is often more profitable than creating something from the ground, looking for investments. However no matter how small investment amounts from crowdfunding could be, as Korsmo said “the main challenge is to make people think on a large scale because big things are made only this way”.
We thank our partners: support in organization of Seed Forum was also received from JSC “RVK”, Strogino Technopark, National Association of Business Angels, informational and analytical portal RUSBASE and East West Digital News.
Seed Forum was founded in 2002 in Norway, currently its headquarters are located in London.