A key message that Skolkovo transmits its startups is the need to expand into new territories. Now it is leading by example: This week, Russia’s biggest innovations roadshow ventures abroad for the first time in its five-year history.
Almaty - the first city outside Russia to host the Startup Tour. Photo: Maxim Zolotukhin
The Russian Startup Tour, run by the Skolkovo Foundation and its partners, lops off the first word in its name as it matures into an international event in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on March 19-20. The goal of the tour is to foster entrepreneurship and uncover the most promising innovations in the region.
Perhaps fittingly, Almaty marks the half-way stage as the sixth stop in the 12-city tour, which began in Rostov-on-Don last month and ends in the Moscow region in April.
In an interview with sk.ru, the chief of the Skolkovo Technopark, Renat Batyrov, describes the central role he wants Almaty to play in expanding the Startup Tour beyond Russia’s borders and into the CIS, revealing the other cities and countries he sees joining the project in the near future.
Skolkovo Technopark chief Renat Batyrov. Photo: sk.ru
What’s the thinking behind taking the Russian Startup Tour outside the confines of the country?
Let’s return to the very concept of the Startup Tour. We didn’t simply think it up out of thin air, and we are not the first to try it. One of the best examples is Slush [Europe’s biggest startup conference in Helsinki], which expanded out of Finland a long time ago with the Startup Sauna. It’s a very logical next step in the project to venture outside Russia’s borders.
The Skolkovo Foundation and Technopark put a lot of effort into international relations, from Europe to Asia, from Latin America to Africa and the near abroad. So Kazakhstan and Belarus, and in the future possibly Azerbaijan, Armenia and other former CIS countries, are the same kind of partners for us as Germany, Finland, the United States, Brazil or China. Of course, we have a lot more in common as regards culture and the language, which is spoken by 100 percent of the Kazakh and Belarusian population, and many links from Soviet times remain in place, while many others are being forged today.
Our startups are interested in entering foreign markets such as Kazakhstan and we know that startups from Kazakhstan are interested in entering the Russian market – or using the mechanisms provided by Skolkovo to enter other foreign markets and conducting research. Kazakhstan is actively developing its innovation infrastructure and innovation community, and they are curious about the steps we’ve made in that direction.
Kazakh delegations travel to us – they’ve visited us five times in the last year – officials of every rank. We are expecting a visit soon from Asset Issekeshev, the minister for investment and development of the Republic of Kazakhstan. He’s a good friend. We’ve already met in Astana, in February.
Just as with the Russian regions, in Kazakhstan or Belarus or any other country, our goal is not to enter a city and just hoover up all the best startups and take them back to Skolkovo. That’s simply not possible and that will never happen. We meet with local people and get this message across to them, because for us, that’s not the important thing. Physically we don’t have the space for all the top teams in Russia, let alone from other countries.
First and foremost, our goal is to give each other the opportunity to enter each other’s markets and exchange expertise. So our trip to Kazakhstan is well-founded and logical. Besides, it’s not just the startups we’re meeting with. There are investors and business angels. Why shouldn’t they invest in Russian companies? Or create their own companies, taking the success stories of Skolkovo startups as their inspiration
We’re also inviting Kazakh companies to Moscow for Startup Village, where they have the chance to win investment here, presenting their projects to hundreds of investors and business angels.
Is this Kazakh-Russian investor community underdeveloped?
It’s practically non-existent. If it does exist, it’s not particularly prominent. But it’s not our only area of activity either. We meet with Kazakh universities and help them create ties with our university [Skoltech], if that’s needed. We meet with Kazakh tech parks and help them become part of our tech park community - not only with our 60 tech parks in Russia, but also with the 400 tech parks that we have as part of our membership of IASP [the International Associated of Science Parks].
What do Kazakh startups have to offer? Where do their strengths lie?
Many, or most of them, are focused on the IT sector, in contrast to our five clusters [IT, nuclear, energy, space and biomed]. Many of them are developing IT innovations in such areas as e-commerce. I know they have strong players in that field. Many of them serve the oil industry [Kazakhstan produces around 1.6 million barrels of oil per day], and here I see many possibilities for our energy cluster startups.
Why has Almaty been chosen as the destination for the Startup Tour rather than the capital, Astana?
The host city in Kazakhstan wasn’t actually down to us – the suggestion was made by the Minister of Investment and Development, Issekeshev, himself, during our meeting. Both Astana and Almaty have the necessary conditions in terms of scientific research, innovation, administration, infrastructure and culture to hold the Startup Tour.
Also, the Startup Tour isn’t held just for the benefit of the Almaty innovation community. Right now we’re getting applications [to participate in the Startup Tour] from startups in Astana, Karaganda, Aktobe, and the entire Kazakh south. We want to stress that the Startup Tour is for the innovation community of Kazakhstan as a whole. And we hope that it will also help strengthen inter-city ties within the community.
Sadly, much as we’d like to, this year we don’t have the possibility to hold the Startup Tour in two cities in Kazakhstan. But who knows, maybe next year we’ll be in a different city or even in several cities. But for now, we’re suggesting everyone meet up in Almaty.
Photo: sk.ru
Didn’t they want to create an IT park in Kazakhstan?
Yes, there were plans to do so in Almaty, but as far as I know they faltered a little. Now, I believe, they are being revived, they’re pushing the restart button, they have a good manager in Sanzhar Kettebekov, who recently returned from Silicon Valley. He really knows what he’s doing. And as far as I know, the Kazakh president is overseeing the project personally, so I’m sure it will all develop well.
How do your preparations for Almaty differ from those for Russian cities?
In Kazakhstan we’re relying more on the help of our partners. We have three levels of partnership: Co-organizers, organizing partners, and information partners. The co-organizers are Almaty Tech Garden and the Almaty Management University, and they are providing the venue and support with transfers, political and strategic issues, and inviting officials and businesspeople to the event.
The National Agency for Technology Development, the Entrepreneurship Development Fund, the Higher Education Institutes Association, the Your Entrepreneurs Club, the Almaty Business Association, the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan – they are all promoting tech entrepreneurship in Kazakhstan and they’re getting the innovators, the startups, the students and big business, involved in the tour. We’re also adapting the Startup Tour program. We react to the feedback we get from participants and experts, and we are continually tweaking the program. Almaty is no exception. In Almaty we are ditching the plenary sessions and devoting more time to master-classes on commercialization techniques – how to convert ideas into money - patent practices, and how to close an investment deal without relinquishing control of the company. There will also be more mentorship sessions and discussions with the Kazakh and Russian business communities. We will also be holding Science Talks with the participation of the Skolkovo Foundation’s science directors, industrial partners and the science community.
It’ll be really interesting to find out about the innovation infrastructure and the support instruments available to startups in Kazakhstan. As I’ve already said, Kazakhstan has a strong IT sector, so we’re devoting an entire section to IT innovations in Russia and Kazakhstan. Experts from EMC, Intel and Cisco have already confirmed their participation in that. In addition, the Skolkovo Business Angels Club is flying out to Kazakhstan.
They’ve already taken a few steps towards integrating with the Kazakh business angels community – their first meeting will take place on the eve of the event in Almaty and they’ll continue their work on March 19-20 at the mentorship sessions.
Right now we’re in talks with several well-known Kazakh businessmen about bringing them to the event too. Our Energy-Efficient Cluster is organizing meetings with state corporations and oil-and-gas businesses to discuss the possibilities of a partnership. As you can see, the program promises to be packed and incredibly useful for the entire innovation community of Kazakhstan and Russia.
What will Skolkovo’s relationship with Kazakhstan look like five years down the road? What are we striving for?
We would like in five years’ time for there to have appeared two strong centers on the world map of innovation. In Kazakhstan, for example in Almaty, and here at Skolkovo. We are moving in that direction. We would like world-class companies to be present both here and there by then. We would like the solutions that will be used by business, by governments in Russia and Kazakhstan and by regular people to have originated in Skolkovo or with our partners in Kazakhstan.
Photo: Maxim Zolotukhin
Kazakhstan and Belarus [the other foreign visit on the Startup Tour] were chosen because they belong to a customs union with Russia?
Yes, it’s simply easier. But I don’t rule out the possibility of going to Europe or Asia next year. Then it won’t be called the Russian Startup Tour, but the World Startup Tour.
You could call it an international tour already
Well, we’ve already renamed it for Belarus and Kazakhstan, repositioning ourselves as simply the Startup Tour, without referring to Russia in the name. We’ve already moved into the CIS.
And what about Belarus? Who are the partners there?
In Belarus we have two partners. The Government Committee for Science and Technology and the Minsk City Technopark. These two structures are helping us bring in the local investor and entrepreneurial community and are assisting with the organization of the event itself. Plus they are providing financial assistance too.
Does Belarus also have strong IT potential?
Belarus is also a major IT player. They have a big company that does outsourcing around the entire world. They have clients all over the world. They have companies like EPAM, Wargaming, and so on. These are companies that are known the world over. They are considered the kind of companies that you can form a city around, although they are in Minsk. Wargaming has 1,800 employees in Minsk alone. For Minsk, this is a huge company. These companies support the local economy through requiring services such as catering, taxis and what have you.
So if we step back, you’re using Kazakhstan and Belarus as stepping stones on the path to further expansion of the tour?
You could say that. These are countries that are part of the customs union, it’s easy to do business with them: External economic communications are easier to facilitate between our countries. Next year, Ekaterina Inozemtseva (Skolkovo strategy director), says we may be in countries like Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. So there’s room for expansion within the CIS still.
How will you measure the success of these two stages? Expansion surely depends on that.
I have already said that our goal is not to hoover up the best startups from the local market. But how do we see our cooperation panning out? We have the Soft Landing program that allows, say, Kazakh companies to become participants of the Skolkovo project by registering a legal entity here in Russia and getting access to our expertise, laboratories, infrastructure, partnership network, after which they can go on to experience further success.
The success of the Skolkovo Foundation is measured solely by the success of its startups. That’s the bottom line. Profit, jobs, investment. In a year’s time it will be easy to see how many Kazakh companies have joined the Skolkovo ecosystem and succeeded according to those parameters. That’s one of the examples of that cooperation. Another is this: The results of our companies in the Kazakh market in a year’s time. How much investment will they attract over there?
The complete itinerary of the Russian Startup Tour can be viewed at its dedicated website.