The Russian Startup Tour will venture beyond Russia’s borders for the first time next February as budding businesses in Belarus and Kazakhstan take part in the fifth annual innovative road show.
The 2015 Russian Startup Tour (RST) is an initiative led by the Skolkovo Foundation to promote entrepreneurship and encourage innovation in Russia’s regions - and now beyond.
"It's not the first year that we've discussed a format on such a scale with our partners from Kazakhstan and Belarus," said Ekaterina Inozemtseva, the Skolkovo Foundation's strategy director. "We also had a request from Azerbaijan to hold the RST. We'll see - perhaps in time we'll go there too," she added.
A map of the Russian Startup Tour 2015
Kazakhstan and Belarus are part of a Russia-led customs union.
The Russian cities along the tour include Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk and Ufa.
The tour will spend two days in each city rather than just one from previous years.
"Experience from previous Startup Tours has shown that one day in each city is just not enough," Inozemtseva said. "So the RST 2015 promises to be jam-packed with information and events, masterclasses and presentations."
The RST promotes innovation and entrepreneurship by helping experts from Russian development institutions and venture capitalists coach entrepreneurs on how to turn their ideas into commercially viable products.
Ekaterina Inozemtseva
The local startups get the chance to pitch their products to the team, and those that give the most impressive presentations are invited to Moscow for summer’s Startup Village. Beside the Hypercube at the Skolkovo Innovation Center on June 2-3, the teams will face off in pitch sessions for the chance to win thousands of dollars’ worth of grants.
Last year’s Startup Tour visited 27 cities around Russia, but next year’s event is open to startups from more than 80 cities.
The tour rolls into the Kazakh capital Astana in March, and pays a visit to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in April.
On Saturday, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said encouraging economic growth through the Startup Tour was the best way top combat the difficult political conditions currently facing the country.
Speaking at the International Investment Forum in Sochi, Dvorkovich said focusing on improving Russia's startup business climate was paramount in the face of global tensions.
"The best answer to that challenge is the maximum expansion of innovative activities," said Dvorkovich, formally an economic advisor to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.