Yesterday, on July 23, the first meeting between Skolkovo ecosystem startups and private investors was held in the frameworks of the Skolkovo Business Angels Club – a new format for investor search, created by the Foundation for the benefit of Skolkovo residents.
In an interview following to the results of the first meeting of the Skolkovo Business Angels Club, Eduard Kanalosh, Investment Director of the Skolkovo Foundation said that working with this group of investors is a strategic mission of the Foundation.
“We still have a lot of companies which are in the “angel stage” of business development, when investments from institutional investors are still inaccessible. That’s why business angels are exactly the type of investors they need to communicate with now.”
Expert speaks to business angels
Such activity is equally important for the community of “independent private investors” as these participants of the startup investment market are also being called.
“Business angel organisations in Russia are still underdeveloped, there are too few in our country, and we need to make efforts to increase their number. Therefore, the established Skolkovo Business Angels Club serves a twofold objective: help develop both the business angel community and promote angel investments”, said Eduard Kanalosh.
So how does Skolkovo Business Angels Club work? To start with, it is an open venue for any high net worth individual who considers investing USD 50-100,000 or more in hi-tech startups. These people can get acquainted with startups through their investment teasers, presentations and in the course of personal communications. Besides, at the Club meeting there are 1-2 speakers who help beginning business angels get informed about trends in technology, learn the ways of signing deals at such early stage, etc. Yesterday there were about 40 private investors at the first Skolkovo Business Angels Club, they listened to 15 pitches of startup teams.
Training before the pitch session
Interestingly, the Club offers professional development programmes both for business angels and startups. Yesterday, prior to the pitches, startups go trained in effective communication skills during networking and short presentations. Business angels were addressed by a member of the Russian Academy of Science, Doctor of Chemical Science of the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of RAS, Alexander Gabibov, who is also the chairman of the 38th Congress of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS). Gabibov spoke about the FEBS congress which took place in July in Saint Petersburg, and about promising topics for commercialization in biomedicine.
Eduard Kanalosh rated the first event as very successful and shared the Club’s plans for the nearest future: “We’ll continue in the same way, maybe with some format changes. This year we will conduct four more meetings in Moscow, two or three in the regions. In cooperation with the National Association of Business Angels (NABA) we will participate in the Business Angels Week, presenting our companies and cooperating in professional development programmes for private investors in the frameworks of Business Angels University.”
Two-minute-long pitch of one of the startups