Mika Häkkinen, the two-time Formula One World Champion, will share his experiences as an angel investor in tech startups at the June 2-3 Startup Village conference.
On day two, the Flying Finn will take part in a “visionaries” session discussing how big business can benefit from innovative startups. The session, which will be moderated by Pekka Viljakainen, Advisor to the President of the Skolkovo Foundation and a renowned Finnish entrepreneur, will also feature Dmitry Strashnov, CEO of Russian Post, Kirill Androsov, Chairman of the Board at Aeroflot and Managing Partner of Altera Capital, Willem Hendrickx, President EMEA (Europe, Middle-East, Africa), Alcatel-Lucent, and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Andrew Romans, General Partner of Rubicon Venture Capital, will hold a mater-class dedicated to the business processes within an early-stage company. He will share his insight on how to set up a startup with very limited initial investment, how to partner with the leading global venture investors and achieve quick results.
Andrew Romans, General Partner, Rubicon Venture Capital: "I am looking forward to being back in Moscow meeting the next big startup and the most active angel and venture capital investors in the region and around the world."
For the first time Startup Village will host 160 representatives of large Finnish companies, such as Fortum Oyj, Rovio, Tekes, Slush, Helsinki Ventures, Evli Bank, Neste Oil Corporation. In another first, startups from China will showcase their innovations at the Startup Bazaar, which will feature 70 projects overall.
Foreign diplomats in Russia are traditionally big fans of Startup Village, and this year is no exception: Representatives of over 30 embassies are signed up, including the ambassadors of Switzerland, Norway, Finland and Ireland.
Vasily Belov, Senior VP for Innovations, Skolkovo Foundation: “We’re proud of the fact that Startup Village is becoming a major international event in Russia. Just like last year, the number of guests is going to exceed 10,000. Around 20 percent of those visitors are foreign guests – startups and investors from Britain, Germany, the United States, Israel, China, South Korea, France and Finland. More than 100 startups from former Soviet states other than Russia will be there. That’s mainly due to the fact that the Startup Tour ventured outside Russia for the first time this year. We held some very positive meetings with innovators in Minsk and Astana, and demonstrated the advantages of the Skolkovo ecosystem.”
At Startup Village young entrepreneurs will have a chance to present their products and services at pitch sessions, take part in lectures, workshops and discussions hosted by the leading Russian and international innovation entrepreneurs. The pitch contest at Startup Village will be split into six tracks: strategic IT technologies and software B2B and B2C; innovative biomedical solutions; energy efficiency and energy conservation; nuclear and new industrial technologies; and space technologies. The three winning startups will be awarded with prizes of $60,000, $40,000 and $20,000.
StartupVillage registration and program can be found here:
https://startupvillage.ru/main/en
Press contacts:
Taisiya Yarmak
Tel.: +79166948826
E-mail: tyarmak@sk.ru