The Skolkovo Business Angels Club (SCBA) meeting took place on November 26 at the World Trade Center in Moscow. Eight startups, which carefully prepared themselves to meet investors, finally got an ovation for their talented presentations.
For the first time the new director of the Skolkovo Investment Service, Evgeny Taubkin, mastered the event, and in the future he’ll be in charge of the SCBA activities. Alexei Beltyukov, the Skolkovo Foundation’s Senior VP, addressed the angel investors, who attended the November SCBA meeting, with a welcome speech. He was followed by Eduard Kanalosh, the Investment Director of the Skolkovo Foundation, who also welcomed the Skolkovo’s pool of angel investors.
Evgeny Taubkin will be in charge of the SCBA
A “guest star” role was assigned to Alexei Kostrov, General director of the Moscow Seed Fund. This investment fund was created by the City Council’s department of science, industrial policy and entrepreneurship and is strongly backed by the Russian Venture Company. The fund had already co-invested in 18 projects (23 were approved overall), most of them in IT sector. Investments were carried out in a form of subsidized 3-years loans. The pitch session of eight Skolkovo startups started after mentioned short welcome addresses. BIS Technology, HR Value, QModule, R&D Center of the Agat Concern, Adaplab, OKB VES, Optimal Management, Smartwiz.
the SCBA pitching session
One could clearly see that the residents were quite well prepared to present themselves in a two-minutes pitches format, when it takes to talk brightly and shortly, explaining all advantages of innovative technology they promote in a very brief format. The pitches gave way to eye-to-eye communications with investors, followed by informal networking. And, as Evgeny Taubkin told the Sk.ru correspondent, the SCBA plans to arrange one more meeting this year. There will be 10 meetings of the Club in 2014 (each month of the year, except August and July). The SCBA also plans to use more actively the Virtual Skolkovo, particularly for video pitching. And among its long-term plans is to create a platform for online work of business angels with the Skolkovo startup residents.
eye-to-eye meeting with investor